Hope from the Sky
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Inspired by the works of other writers that took to it, this is my first attempt. Shinji and Unit-01, victims of the Twelfth Angel attack, find themselves in another world with giants that crave human flesh. Can Shinji offer his Eva's assistance in allowing mankind to cancel their extinction, or will he be joining them?
1. Hope from the Sky

Creation began on 05-15-15

Creation ended on 05-15-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky

A/N: I decided to take my try on the idea of Shinji and Unit-01 being sent to a different dimension after facing the Twelfth Angel in the anime. If I post this in due time, I'll be the first to have done it. With the crossovers in the works, it's only a matter of time before someone beats me to the punch. Here goes!

It had been quite a while since Shinji Ikari ever knew helplessness before when facing an Angel, a so-called enemy that he knew, virtually, nothing about, and had no concrete understanding of them, even when he asked about why they were called what they were called. All he knew was that he had been sucked into a deep, dark hole with no light, and he wasn't sure when, how and if, NERV would rescue him from the Angel.

His senses were dulled, so he didn't feel the crash that could only occur when falling from a great height. But luckily for him, he was still in Unit-01 so the impact was less than half of what it could've had been if he had been outside it.

"Aah," he groaned, feeling like that time he'd been attacked by the Third Angel in his first sortie, when he didn't know anything about the Angels or the Evas.

"Aaahh!" He heard the sounds of screaming shortly after, and he looked through the eyes of the Eva…and saw a tall wall that reminded him of a picture he once saw of the Great Wall of China, only this wall was more medieval and was under attack by a giant, skinless being. "Aaahh!"

 _What?_ He thought, now seeing that below the wall and skinless giant were smaller beings the size of small houses and trees, all trying to get through the wall and into whatever was behind it.

The skinless giant turned to face him, and suddenly approached his Eva.

Shinji had never seen such a horrible sight; he had never known the inside of the human body without its skin, let alone a creature that could survive without any skin protecting its softer innards. And yet, the sight of this giant made him assume that whatever its intentions were, they weren't at all to strike a friendly conversation or anything of the sort. He checked the remaining energy reserves of the Eva, and was displeased with the amount of operational time left before the Eva powered down.

 _Only three minutes,_ he realized, deciding that he needed to defend himself from this giant. _It'll have to do for now._

He made Unit-01 rise up, just in time to block an assault from the giant with its arms, preventing him from being forced back onto the ground.

 _Whoa!_ He mentally gasped, surprised as how strong the skinless giant was, but Unit-01 had the advantage of being a little bigger than it was by an additional forty meters in height, so if Shinji played it carefully, Unit-01 would prevail.

-x-

"My God," went Eren Yeager, watching the Colossal Titan attack the larger giant that looked nothing like any of the Titans they had seen approaching the Wall.

"Is that another Titan?" Armin asked.

"Not like any I've seen before," said Jean. "It's larger than the Colossal and looks like it's covered in armor, just like the Armored Titan."

"Whatever it is, the Colossal doesn't seem to view it as a friend," Armin pointed out.

They then saw the purple giant punch the Colossal in its face, sending it staggering backwards, falling onto the ground.

"Whoa!" Eren gasped, never imagining such force being able to attack a Titan as powerful or as tall as the Colossal, even with just a single punch.

"Whatever that thing is," went Armin, "it clearly views the Colossal as an enemy."

"What is it doing?" Jean questioned, pointing to it as it looked like it was taking something out of its left shoulder.

-x-

With less than two minutes left, Shinji knew that he needed to end this quickly, and pulled out his Progressive Knife.

 _Here goes,_ he thought, and thrust the knife forward, piercing the skinless giant in the chest, driving the blade upwards, and cleaving the giant's head in half!

Unable to even react in pain, the giant fell backwards and onto the ground.

Then, due to his experience with the Angels and their regenerative abilities, Shinji used the Prog. Knife to cut the cleaved pieces of the giant's head from the body and then the arms, along with the legs before the power went out.

-x-

"It killed the Colossal," Armin shuddered.

Suddenly, the Titans below them at the bottom of the Wall started to move away, towards the purple giant, as if to avenge their fallen comrade.

-x-

As soon as he saw the smaller giants approaching him, Shinji wished he had an Umbilical Cable eliminating his power restriction. And worse was that the Eva was down to its last ten seconds.

"What am I gonna do?" He questioned aloud.

To be continued…

A/N: And here's the first chapter of what will hopefully be a short crossover between _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ and _Attack on Titan_. But you don't know for sure until you try something. Read and review, like always, and I'll get to you. Peace!


	2. Edge

Creation began on 05-16-15

Creation ended on 05-17-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Edge

The Titans swarmed Unit-01, as Shinji was helpless within it, pondering how long the Eva could keep these beings from him until it couldn't any longer. With no power, he was unable to view the world outside the Eva or even the giant wall that these beings were trying to get through.

 _I wonder how long it will be until the life support stops?_ He wondered, unsure of why, when the Eva shut down from loss of power, the life support system didn't go with it.

SLAM! He suddenly felt something hit his Eva.

"Aaahh!" He gasped.

-x-

With the demise of the Colossal Titan, the lesser Titans that swarmed over the purple giant were aided by two other Titans that seemed different from the rest of them, but were similar to the Colossal. One was the Armored Titan, having rammed into the left leg of the giant with enough force to knock it down, even when it was crouched. The other was a fourteen-meter-sized Titan with a lean build, a feminine appearance (despite the lack of skin) and had crystallized fists that were strong enough to leave a small dent in the right leg's armor covering.

"Why is it just laying there, doing nothing?" Armin questioned, as he and the others were watching from the safety of the Wall. "Why doesn't it do something?"

"Maybe it can't," suggested Mikasa, just as the Armored Titan climbed atop the giant's body.

-x-

The vibrations were loud, and the slamming constant, making Shinji aware that he was greater danger from the beings outside.

"Come on, move!" He demanded of the Eva, grabbing at the controls.

-x-

"…I gotta do something," went Eren, deciding he had to stop the Titans from attempting to devour or destroy the purple giant; if it could defeat the Colossal, then maybe, just maybe, it could've been an invaluable ally to their cause.

"No, Eren!" Mikasa urged him not to go and fight the Titans.

"We can't just stand here and do nothing."

"It may be a new type of Titan, Eren."

"What kind of Titan attacks its own kind?"

"That's what everyone wondered before we found out you could turn into one. We've never seen a Titan that looked like that before. It can't be a Titan."

"Uh, something's happening with the purple giant!" Armin yelled, pointing to the giant swarmed by the Titans that were dwarfed by the deceased Colossal.

It suddenly rose up and opened its mouth, revealing red and white teeth, roaring an inhuman roar that rivaled Eren's Titan form when first encountered by the people. It grabbed a nearby Titan that was almost eight-meters tall…and ate it. And then…it grabbed another Titan and devoured it before rising back onto its feet, knocking away the rest of the Titans.

-x-

A heartbeat. It was a heartbeat that Shinji heard, but not from himself. It was from the Eva itself. There was no mistaking it at all.

It rose up and ate two of the smaller beings and knocked the rest away.

Shinji saw two of the beings that were probably the ones that caused the Eva to fall back, looking similar to the giant he had defeated, only smaller, and saw them approaching him. Right now, he only had one goal above the others he didn't have right now, and that was to survive.

The Eva stomped the ground and caused several of the smaller giants to fall, but the two that looked skinless still stood. It then grabbed three more of the smaller giants and consumed them.

Checking his time regulator, Shinji found that his Eva had somehow restored power to the internal battery by devouring the smaller giants; he now had twenty-seven minutes.

 _I don't know how this is possible,_ he thought, _but it's better than nothing._

With the power restored, he had Unit-01 reach down and grab the giant that looked like it was wearing some form of armor over its skinless hide and threw it high into the air above, where it disappeared beyond the clouds. He then made a quick grab for the other, skinless giant that looked like a girl and did the same with it, sending it beyond the reach of the wall.

-x-

"…It…just threw the Armored Titan and another Titan away like they were made of rag dolls," said Mikasa, unable to believe what she just saw right now.

"Hey, down there!" One of the cadets shouted, pointing to the base of the Wall, right at the smaller Titans. "They're running!"

Eren and Armin looked down at the remaining Titans, and saw this to be true; the Titans were suddenly running away from the Wall and the purple giant.

Some of them didn't get very far, as the purple giant grabbed at least eight more of them and ate them, as well before falling to its knees.

"It killed the Colossal and drove the other Titans away!" Another cadet cheered.

It was like a miracle had been brought to them that day. A ray of hope from the heavens, enabling them to take back their world, to overturn their path to extinction and lead them to salvation.

Suddenly, something protruded from the purple giant's back. It was some sort of capsule or piece of bone, unlike anything they've ever seen before.

"What is that?" Armin questioned.

"There's only one way to find out," went Eren. "We go see for ourselves."

To be continued…

A/N: And here's the second chapter. What do you think so far? Huge credit to whoever can figure out what helped to inspire the Titan consumption performed by Unit-01. Review! Review! Peace! And to be clear, this pretty much occurs right after Eren is discovered to be able to turn into a Titan.


	3. Discovery

Creation began on 05-17-15

Creation ended on 05-20-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Discovery

A/N: _"I don't want your suffering, I don't want your future!"_ Professor X says in _X-Men: Days of Future Past_.

"…Hey, he's waking up," Shinji heard someone say as he came to, having lost consciousness after the Eva.

Opening his eyes, he found himself in a dungeon-like room with a small light above his head.

"Another unbearable ceiling," he groaned, getting up, and then he noticed at least three people in front of him.

They looked a little older than he was, dressed in military-looking uniforms, and wearing strange gear that looked like blades attached to gun handles.

"You're awake now," the blond-haired woman in front of him expressed. "How are you?"

Before Shinji could answer, he realized that he was shackled to the cot he was on.

"What is the meaning of this?" He asked them, raising his shackled arms up.

"It's a precaution," she answered him. "We don't know what you are, human or Titan. Identify yourself immediately, sir."

"My name…is Shinji Ikari."

"Are you human or Titan?" A gray-haired man asked him.

"I'm human. What is a Titan?"

"Those things that look like people, only bigger and have a taste for human flesh," explained the third person, a blond-haired boy. "Um, that giant, purple thing you were found in. Just what is it? We initially thought it was some sort of new Titan, but it looks like it's made completely out of metal."

"Purple giant? Oh, you mean the Eva. It's a… It's a giant, synthetic machine that was designed to fight against giant monsters called Angels."

"Angels? Giant monsters? Are they like the Titans?"

Shinji nodded in the negative; he had never seen an Angel that was similar to what he learned were the Titans that he had faced when he arrived here, wherever "here" was.

"I don't know what is going on, exactly, but I have one question that deserves an answer," Shinji expressed, "and that's just where am I?"

"You're in the Trost District," the blond-haired woman explained. "It's a town located on the southern side of Wall Rose."

"Wall Rose?"

"The Wall we found you by when we were facing the Colossal Titan."

"The Colossal Titan? You mean, that giant with no skin that I cut up?"

"That's right."

-x-

Setting up base tents around Unit-01, the Survey Corps had been tasked with keeping the purple giant in check and protected from potential theft and Titan assaults.

Eren and Mikasa, standing just under the Eva's lowered head, were wondering if the giant could come back to life on its own.

A horse and rider came by, approaching Erwin Smith, who supervised the detail over the Eva.

"The boy found inside this giant came to an hour ago," he revealed to Erwin.

"And has he explained anything about this giant and how it works?" Erwin questioned.

"Not in that many words, sir."

"Explain."

"He was questioned about it, and all he was able to say was that it's called an Evangelion, or 'Eva' for short. With everything else that he said, it doesn't seem like either are from around here or beyond the Walls where Titans could be found."

"What do you mean?"

"They just fell from the sky, so it's more than likely that they came from some other place. Possibly another world, even."

"How is such a thing possible?"

"If I knew, sir, then I'd know how to defeat the Titans myself."

The man explained what he learned from Shinji about the Eva, about how it was designed to face monsters that were vastly different from the Titans, and where they were from.

"…So, it's clear that they're from a place where there were buildings that could…sink into and rise out of the ground."

"That sounds almost like a fairy tale," Erwin commented. "Never mind this…Evangelion, then. What about the boy's background?"

"That was something he was even more hesitant on talking about," the man said. "He was sent for by his father one day…and then forced to face an enemy he knew nothing about, with very little hope of surviving. He's been facing these…Angel monsters ever since the day he met his father. Before that, his childhood can only be defined as a poor upbringing. He lost his mother at an early age and his father abandoned him, leaving him in the care of a teacher and having very little contact with him. No friends or other family relatives, despite hailing from a place that had millions of people, living an isolated lifestyle no different from our lives behind the Walls."

Eren and Mikasa overheard the entire conversation and wondered who this Shinji Ikari really was and how emotionally damaged he had been.

-x-

After eating and being given a pair of clothes to walk around it (he'd been in his plugsuit ever since waking up in the room he was placed in), Shinji was permitted to walk around the Trost District as long as he was escorted by a Stationary Guard.

 _It's like an old town from centuries I've only heard of,_ Shinji thought as he walked down the old roads, seeing the damaged buildings and walkways caused by the Titans.

While some of the deceased civilians had been collected and disposed of, there were still a few left that Shinji took notice of, and it took him a lot of effort to hide his woe and disgust over the dead bodies.

"How long have these…Titans been attacking everyone?" He found the will to ask that question.

"Over one-hundred years," the guard escorting him answered.

 _One-hundred years?_

"We're at the brink of extinction because of them. At first, they couldn't breach the Walls, but then the Colossal and Armored Titans appeared five years ago. And then, just a few days ago, the Colossal had reappeared again…and again. They took most of the land within Wall Maria and almost forced us to retreat to Wall Sina if they took Wall Rose."

"That must've been when I showed up."

"I heard that you used that purple giant to kill the Colossal. Almost hard to believe someone like you killed a Titan that massive and caused the other Titans to retreat. You must either be lucky or blessed."

Seeing some people entering the undamaged buildings (probably their homes or shops), Shinji wanted to say that he was neither lucky or blessed, but the sight of a little girl being picked up and held by her father kept him silent.

-x-

"…We've checked the neck of this giant, and our blades couldn't make a dent in its armor," one of the female members of the Survey Corps informed Erwin. "Whoever built this thing clearly didn't want it going down easily."

Erwin looked up at the horned giant and thought that such a thing could be extremely useful against the Titans if it could be controlled.

"Orders, sir?" He was asked by the woman.

"We might need the boy's help," he expressed, already hoping that the people could be aided by this giant.

-x-

With the destruction of the Twelfth Angel, NERV had expected to regain Unit-01, but all they obtained from its defeat was Angel blood splattered everywhere within reach and extensive damage done to an insignificant portion of the city it was in. There was neither an Evangelion or a pilot salvaged from the operation to eliminate the Angel.

"This isn't good," Ritsuko sighed, unable to comprehend why the Eva didn't return after using all of their remaining N² arsenal that they had at their disposal, although the head and torso of it should've survived mostly intact.

Misato was crushed. The Angel had been defeated, but, in her mind, the cost was just too high; the Eva didn't matter as much as Shinji had.

Rei was equally devastated, but was unsure of how to actually treat this loss.

Asuka, while not one to display any emotion towards anyone that she viewed as competition, regretted egging Shinji to take on the Angel on his own. She might've disliked him, but not to the point of wanting him killed, just out of her way.

 _Commander Ikari will not like this,_ Ritsuko realized; with the apparent loss of Unit-01, Gendo Ikari's wrath was all but assured, and nobody would be exempt from it.

-x-

Looking into his cup of water, Shinji was unsure of the reason he was requested to be seen by this Dot Pixis guy, only being informed earlier as the sun started to set that he had requested an audience with the boy. So all he could do right now was sit and wait.

 _What could they possibly want with me?_ He wondered.

"So, you're the one that everyone in the Garrison's been talking about?" He looked to his left and saw an elderly man that was balding.

"Are you…Dot Pixis?" He asked him.

"Indeed, I am," the bald man answered.

"I was told you wanted to see me, but not why."

"It concerns your…Evangelion."

"Oh."

"You've been told about how the people have been living behind the Walls for over a century, right?"

"Yes. Because of the Titans, nobody has been able to live outside the Walls, so nobody's sure if there are more people beyond them."

"Well, there have been several attempts over the years to expand beyond the Walls…but with no success. But…now that the Colossal Titan's gone, the Survey Corps wish to try and expand humanity beyond the Walls again, but this time, they want for you to join them with your Evangelion."

"You mean…you want my help against the Titans?"

"Yes. Would you consider helping us take back the lands the Titans have taken over the years? We'd be grateful for your assistance."

Of course, helping to face the Titans would mean piloting the Eva, but this time against an enemy that looked like people, only bigger and were man-eaters and were as nude as the people they devoured were when they drew their first breath.

"…We already have one edge against the Titans by having a lad who's able to turn into one," he heard Mr. Pixis express, which caught Shinji's attention in an endangered way.

"Huh?" He reacted. "Someone here can turn into a Titan?"

"Oh, there's no need to worry," Mr. Pixis assured him. "He's of no harm to anyone, except the enemy Titans. He helped us clear the town of them when they invaded a few days ago. A bit of a shock when it was discovered, but we've, more or less, accepted him for what he's capable of."

"Oh. You almost had me worried for a moment. But to be honest, I don't know if the Eva would be of any help to anyone. I mean, I was able to get it working again, but that was probably by sheer luck. I barely know anything about the Eva. Half the time, I don't know if I control it…or it controls me. Nobody else was able to pilot it back where I'm from."

"There were others? These Evas?"

"Only three. Of course, since I'm here, they're reduced to two. I don't think my father is worried about my disappearance, though."

"Why is that?"

"He was never once said a kind thing to me. The only time he ever gave me praise was when I piloted the Eva, and even that was just one time."

"That's rough," Mr. Pixis expressed his sympathy to him; he could understand why most people wouldn't want to throw their lives away for any reason that resulted in a great change, and how most children that joined the military usually had no other influence to guide them towards other, potential futures within the Walls. "But what of now? You're the only one that can decide what to do with your life as long as you're here."

And truth be told, Shinji just wanted to walk away from fighting and try to find a meager life wherever he could. But somehow doubt that such a possibility existed for him, back then and now. While the battlefield of the Angels was intense, the battlefield of these Titans didn't seem similar to what he had been forced into; the Colossal had been the largest of the Titans encountered so far, while the rest of them had been less than twenty-meters in height, so an Eva that could function would be like a human stepping on a roach or some other small pest. And then, there was the fact that Unit-01 had consumed some of the Titans and restored its power and extended the time regulator to over five minutes. If he could limit the time used until there were enemy Titans to consume (if there was even the possibility of extending the time limit of the Eva's internal battery), then there was a possibility of actually helping these people take back their world from these giant man-eaters.

 _And there's no Angels to fight,_ he thought, feeling that he could actually help these people. "Maybe I can get the Eva to eat more of the Titans."

-x-

In his office, Gendo Ikari was pondering how to make sense of his scenario now that Unit-01, his primary piece, was gone. The Eva was instrumental in achieving his goal, but now, without it, there was no way to achieve his desired outcome. He might've still had Adam and Lilith, but the soul he longed to reunite with was gone, beyond his reach and the reach of NERV's existing science and technology. There was no further point in him going on, anymore.

"The Committee was not happy to know that Unit-01 was lost," Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki expressed; it had been a week since the Twelfth Angel's defeat.

Gendo didn't say anything, and Fuyutsuki didn't expect him to.

-x-

Rising from the ocean waters, two giant humanoids stood, overlooking the ruins of a former city. They looked at each other, unsure of where they were, only that it was immensely different from where they used to reside.

The giant on the left looked like a person of a feminine build, with short, blondish hair and a complete lack of skin, displaying measures of muscle and bone tissue.

The one of the right had the build of a hunched man, but the majority of its appearance, while lacking skin, possessed various plates of a hardened, bone-like material that served as a substitute.

-x-

"…So, you're okay with this?" Armin asked Shinji, who was in his plugsuit once more, about to climb into the Entry Plug still protruding out of Unit-01.

"Yeah," he answered back. "I mean, it's just giants that are mostly around three-fifteen-meters tall, right? The Colossal was sixty-meters tall and Unit-01 is one-hundred-meters tall. I was told that the chances of any Titan being of similar height to the Colossal are very slim."

"Yeah…and you took out the Colossal, so, thanks to you, we may have the upper hand against the Titans for the first time in a long time."

Shinji then closed the Entry Plug and resealed the Eva, letting the LCL refill the plug.

When Unit-01 activated, it carried a large tent with a wooden base to transport the Survey Corps to Wall Maria in order to venture beyond it in the hopes that the Titans weren't around.

"Why us?!" Armin screamed, as several of the members had to use their blades lodged into the wood to hold their ground; it was quite a surprise to be witnesses to an Eva's speed, as its height and mass should've made it similar to a Titan…to a degree, but it was moving like nothing could stop it.

Shinji watched his timer and had used only less than three minutes so far. By the time he had consumed four minutes of the Eva's power, he had reached Wall Maria.

"Incredible," went Levi; it would've normally taken them a day or two to get from one of the Walls to the other.

But what really caught their attention was what was moving away from Wall Maria.

Titans, moving through the hole that had been made by the Colossal Titan five years earlier, at an unsteady pace.

"They're still running," uttered Mikasa.

To be continued…

A/N: What do you think so far?


	4. The Order of Nature

Creation began on 05-20-15

Creation ended on 05-25-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: The Order of Nature

A/N: The _Attack on Titan/Godzilla_ crossovers rarely say it, but they demonstrate a degree of what had been said in the latest _Godzilla_ film about nature having an order and a power to restore balance. While some can say that Unit-01 isn't the result of nature, it is the power to restore the human race to its original in the food chain.

It was a simple plan now that they had the Eva and a person that could turn into a Titan on their side: If Unit-01 was able to restore its energy reserves by consuming Titans, then the purple behemoth was to try and consume as many of the retreating Titans as possible…and it was a plan that seemed to be working quite well when the Eva was unleashed upon them.

The Survey Corps watched in astonishment as the Eva grabbed handfuls of Titans and consumed them.

Within the plug, Shinji saw his timer increase from less than nineteen minutes to over thirty minutes from having Unit-01 eat more than eight of the Titans, proving that the giants could be used as an alternative source of energy in this strange world he found himself in.

As the Titans continued to scramble away from the Eva, the Survey Corps watched from the safety of Wall Maria as the Titans were being eaten, Eren watched, gleefully, as the monsters that pushed mankind to the brink of extinction were being consumed as food for a monster they had discovered being piloted by a person no different from them, and were unable to either harm or eat.

"We got 'em on the run!" A female member said, watching as the Titans left were able to get away.

In less than ten minutes, Unit-01 had eaten at least thirty Titans that were unable to get away…and now possessed a time limit that was close to incredible for the future battles against the rest of them.

 _This is over ten hours of operational power,_ Shinji realized, now convinced that the Eva could help these people take back their world. _If these Titans were any smaller, we could survive this._

-x-

In the old ruins of a former settlement, what looked like a gorilla or orangutan the size of a Titan examined several structures that were tall enough to reach the sky.

Suddenly, a six-meter Titan showed up and grumbled some inaudible noise that the ape-like creature listened to.

-x-

It was hard to believe it at first, but what was once the ruins of the Shiganshina District were being rebuilt and reclaimed by people with the addition of attempting to travel more beyond the Walls and reclaim the land taken by the Titans, who hadn't been seen in a total of three months since Shinji and Unit-01 consumed a small number of them to power up the Eva.

Outside Wall Maria, as if to guard or intimidate the people taking back the district, Unit-01, having been marked with the symbol of the Survey Corps' Wings of Freedom, was on standby to conserve the remarkable power it had until it was needed to take on the Titans again, and Shinji, sitting on the left shoulder, looking at the vast land beyond the Walls.

It had been a long time since he ever had a peaceful moment to just do nothing but think. He thought about the life he left behind in Tokyo-3, about Misato, Ayanami, Toji and Kensuke, about whether or not he was missed by them, how they got by with his absence. Based on what NERV did the first time he ever piloted the Eva against an Angel, they probably declared him missing in action or killed in action, hiding the truth from the public. He didn't expect his father or Asuka to be worried about him (not that he probably would've been missed by either), as they tended to look the other way wherever he was concerned. Still, he couldn't help but wonder what, if at all, sort of impact he left on people back in Tokyo-3.

-x-

"…So, he's just gone?" Kensuke asked Asuka at school, having been unable to get anything from Misato.

"He was declared MIA," the German redhead revealed.

Meanwhile, up on the roof of the school building, Rei Ayanami looked out at the land away from the city, wondering if Shinji was alive, wherever he ended up.

"So, I hear that Shinji's just gone?" She heard Toji say to her.

"Missing in action," she explained it simply. "He was not recovered in the aftermath."

"So, then, he could be alive."

"Commander Ikari doesn't believe so."

-x-

Rising from the ground where the Colossal Titan had fallen, Bertolt Hoover, looking unscathed, couldn't believe that he had been defeated by a creature much larger than his Titan form…and more formidable than any of the Titans that were unleashed upon mankind. He had heard stories a long time ago about a horned being referred to as the Devil, and how he was a force to be reckoned with against those that committed sins. The creature that defeated him had to be like the Devil he never saw, the force that was to be reckoned with, and looked down upon him as a sinner for his crimes against mankind. He considered himself fortunate enough to do the one thing he never thought he'd be able to do against an adversary stronger than him: Survive.

 _I survived,_ he thought, looking at the empty land in between Wall Rose and Wall Maria, noticing how there were no other Titans present.

He picked up a rock used it to cut his left hand, only managing to hurt himself. This surprised him, however, as he was thinking of turning into the Colossal again to see if he still could, and really wanted to believe that he still could. The fact that he didn't meant only one, logical solution to why he didn't change, and that was that his ability to transform into a Titan was gone, leaving him as nothing but a human before he became cursed with the power of the Titans.

 _I'm free?_ He wondered to himself, trying to inflict harm to his wrist and turn into the Colossal, failing each time to trigger the transformation. _I'm human again. I can't become the Colossal, anymore._

-x-

"…I never thought we'd be able to come back here again," Shinji heard a woman say to her husband as they sat around the tables, enjoying their meal like everyone else was that night, a month later after the rebuilding of the Shiganshina District had been completed and the expanding of it progressed further.

"Believe it, sweetheart," her husband to her. "They're driving the Titans away because of that kid and his giant monster that can eat Titans and draw strength from them. A monster that can eat the monsters that used to hunt us is our greatest ally along with a man that can turn into a Titan and fight them on their own ground."

As he continued to eat his meal, several of the people that were able to return to their homes in this place were dancing and enjoying themselves, like it was the first time in a long time that they've ever been able to live without the fear of being persecuted or annihilated by a foreign enemy.

"Um, excuse me, sir?" He heard a young lady's voice behind him, and turned to face the lady that was talking to him. "Um, are you the boy that rides that purple giant?"

She was around his age, with grayish hair and blue eyes, dressed in a tan-colored dress with a black bodice, leather boots and silver wristbands.

"Uh, yes, ma'am," he answered her.

"Thank you for fighting the Titans for us all," she praised him, and then handed him a piece of paper.

"Um, you're welcome," he told her, but she had walked away and disappeared into a crowd of people.

He decided to look at the piece of paper he was given…and saw that it was probably the nicest form of encouragement he'd been given since he found himself here.

" _May you find happiness and hope, wherever they are_ _…_ _and whoever you find them with,"_ the note read to him.

"Thanks," he uttered, folding the not and putting it in his pants' left pocket.

-x-

Gathering a large number of Titans together in the ruins, the gorilla-like Titan was preparing to attack the Walls that served as the only defense against them to take out what was there. The very mentioning of something larger than any of them, and being able to defeat a Colossal Titan, was a disgrace against them and what they stood for in existence.

"Such a creature would prove remarkably useful if it was affiliated with us," it spoke, demonstrating the ability of human speech.

The number of Titans in front of it ranged to about two-hundred, much larger than any of the lesser degree of Titans ever faced. And while many of them weren't as massive as the Colossal or as invulnerable as the Armored or even as nimble as the Female, it hoped to change that soon.

To be continued…

A/N: What do you think so far about the Eva now having over ten hours of power at its disposal and the Beast Titan hearing of the Eva being able to threaten everything the Titans have done over the years? Impressed? Tempted to read more? Please, review! Peace!


	5. The King's Fear and Belief

Creation began on 05-25-15

Creation ended on 05-31-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: The King's Fear and Belief

A/N: I have only the information of the Wikipedia and its _Attack on Titan Wiki_ to give me much of the details of certain characters, as I've not read the manga version. Therefore, if anything doesn't make an sense, it's due to that.

Within the confines of Wall Sina, the ruler, Rod Reiss, having heard about the new situation that was within the Walls, sighed as he wrote down notes about the recent discovery. While the idea seemed ludicrous in its entirety, the citizens believed in the power of this purple giant that defeated the Colossal Titan and devoured over twenty lesser Titans no more than three months ago and that they, along with this Eren Yaeger, who could turn into a Titan himself, could help mankind take back the world beyond the Walls. But Rod was skeptical of this, mainly due to the fact that the Coordinate had been lost to his family some years ago in the aftermath of the fall of Wall Maria, and how the belief of a foreign person and his giant could ever save the people.

 _And from what I've heard, this person that rides the purple giant, this Shinji Ikari, appears to be an Asian,_ thought Rod, just as he wrote it down. _So, even if we had the Coordinate, there's no chance of it ever affecting his memories. And then, there's the Titans themselves_ _…_ _and how they grant the giant power. They that devour the weak will become devoured themselves, eventually. How can the people that have never been beyond the Walls believe that a giant from the sky will help them take back the world and help them live beyond the Walls? The Walls have been our safety for over one-hundred years. Don't they realize that the world beyond them is not meant for us, anymore?_

But Rod had to admit that this feeling of hope that the citizens possessed, their faith in this outsider…was quite remarkable…if only because they didn't have much hope to begin with. To have no hope…and then be given such hope…is such a rarity that he found truly to be another gift from God himself.

 _In the end, all we have is hope,_ he thought, writing that down, as well.

-x-

"…So, people are starting to leave the city again," Misato heard some people talking as she had gone grocery shopping, something she had often let Shinji do when he had arrived to Tokyo-3.

"Yeah," a man had said to a woman. "It's only a rumor, but something happened that has people unnerved by the city sinking into a black hole."

"It's almost as insane as the rumors I've been hearing about a pair of giants wandering around the remains of the coastal areas of the country at night."

That, of course, was something Misato didn't take too much into the consideration of believing, even though she believed in the Angels.

-x-

"…With the loss of Unit-01 and the Third Child, the Committee is sending over Unit-03," Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki informed Gendo. "They're also considering sending Unit-04…once it's been installed with the experimental S² Engine salvaged from the Fourth Angel."

But Gendo wasn't listening; to him, only Unit-01 really meant anything. Without that Eva, he might as well had died already.

Fuyutsuki wasn't blind to this and knew that Ikari's scenario was beyond reach, leaving only the objective to eliminate the Angels.

-x-

As the rebuilding and expanding of the town progressed, Eren, Mikasa and Armin were standing in front of the ruins of the Yaeger home. For Mikasa and Armin, it was a mystery to why they needed to come back here, but for Eren, it was the hope of discovering the reason to why he was able to turn into a Titan and why he couldn't remember what his father said before disappearing.

Behind them were several other members of the Survey Corps, tasked with helping them discover the truth and use it to aid in bringing mankind back from the brink of extinction.

"Well, here goes nothing," Eren sighed, and pushed the front door open.

-x-

"If this progresses, they will, eventually, abandon the Walls," a member of the Wall Cult said to several other members. "The purple giant that can consume Titans as food and the man that can turn into a Titan will shatter their faith in the Walls."

"The purple giant is controlled by a young man that fell from the sky with it," a female member uttered to the first one, a male member. "That is how it is able to do what it does. But if the young man were disposed of, the Survey Corps wouldn't be able to use it to progress their expansion plans. The man that can become a Titan is the lesser of the two threats."

"Dispose of the one that controls the purple giant, and the giant becomes useless."

-x-

After seeing a man that specialized in therapy, Shinji found that he had a problem with being under ceilings that weren't familiar to him, and every time he was under one, he addressed it as an unfamiliar ceiling. This unfamiliarity with ceilings was due to his childhood being filled with unhappiness and unresolved issues with his estrangement from his father and his inability to grieve over his mother's untimely death. And now, he was under another unfamiliar ceiling, but one that was far from the ones he had been used to seeing, as it was made of wood.

 _I never thought I could pilot the Eva to_ _…_ _actually help people,_ he thought, his face bathed in the bluish-white light of the moon outside the window. _And the people praise me for doing so._

NEIGH! He suddenly heard a horse whine…and the unsheathing of what sounded like a blade moments later.

SLASH! He heard something cut through what sounded like cloth with meat inside it.

"Aaurgh!" A man's scream was then heard.

"Retreat!" A woman shouted.

SLASH, SLASH, SLASH! More sounds of cutting could be heard, along with the whining of a horse.

Shinji raised his head up and looked out the window, seeing a stranger from afar on the road outside, obscured by both the distance between the small shack he was in…and the cloak-like garment they were wearing, holding what looked like a sickle.

Beside the stranger was a horse that was as white as the moonlight, and possessing a single horn on its head, like a mythical unicorn.

The stranger stroked the horse's neck and then climbed atop its saddle and rode off, leaving only their sickle behind.

A/N: I'll stop this chapter here. Can anyone guess who the mysterious stranger was? What do you think Eren and the Survey Corps will find in the basement of the Yaeger home now that they've taken back Wall Maria? Read and review, please.


	6. Rise of the Rogue Titan

Creation began on 06-01-15

Creation ended on 06-07-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Rise of the Rogue Titan

Grisha Yeager's notes and files were astonishing! He had discovered something called the Coordinate, which could empower a person with the ability to turn into a Titan with the power to control the other Titans, stop them and allow mankind to return from the brink of extinction…and he gave this power to Eren because the people that originally possessed it, the Reiss family, chose not to use this power to save the people and stop the Titans.

"I don't believe this," went Eren, setting down one of his father's journals. "The royal family had this power for years…and they did nothing but let the people suffer."

Mikasa and Armin consoled him; it wasn't just the revelation of this power Eren now possessed that could turn the tides and save mankind, but the darker revelation that in order to obtain this power, his father had turned him into a Titan…and had him consume his father because the Coordinate was linked to the possessor's spinal cord.

"How can this be possible?" One of the Survey Corps members questioned, unsure of this all being the truth. "The royal family could've stopped the Titans before any of this…and they chose not to do anything. They could've saved the people that suffered before the fall of Wall Maria five years ago, before the Colossal… Years ago! And they did nothing!"

"This is treason," went another member in response.

"But now Eren has the power to stop the Titans," said Armin, trying to clear the basement of bad air by reminding them all that they now had the opportunity to turn everything around. "And we can finally help Shinji take back the world from the Titans more effectively."

"A giant that can consume Titans is effective to a degree," added Mikasa, "but to be able to control the Titans and affect the memory of countless people is near the level of a god."

"This memory-manipulating aspect of the Coordinate power is, for some reason that even Mr. Yeager couldn't explain, ineffective against members of nobility and Asian races," a female member of the group told them, looking into another journal, and deducing that members of the Ackerman group had to be of Asian descent to be immune to the Coordinate's ability to erase memories. "Everyone else, for that matter, can have their memories erased completely in order to keep them in check and even be unable to find a way to stop the Titans permanently."

"And those incapable of forgetting anything relating to the Titans…are hunted down to ensure that they can't pose a threat to the royal family." Armin expressed.

-x-

"…These people were members of the Wall Cult," said a man, examining the remains of the dismembered people from last night, noticing that they had small knives and pouches of explosive powders, indicating that they were planning to attempt an assassination on someone.

Shinji, among the crowd of people looking at the dead bodies being gathered and examined, heard of this, and wondered what the Wall Cult was, exactly.

"Excuse me, miss," he asked an elderly woman on his right, "but do you know about the Wall Cult?"

"It's just a bunch of people that preach their beliefs on the Walls being sacred and how they believe they need to be protected from whatever impurities that may affect them, like the world beyond them," she answered him. "They're just a bunch of zealots that have lost their way and believe the world beyond the Walls is out of bounds and that the lands inside the Walls are all we have left."

"But that's terrible," Shinji expressed his concerns. "I mean…the Titans haven't been seen in a few months and preparations have been made to explore some of the ruins outside Wall Maria and retake them. How can expansion and colonization be viewed as a bad thing in the eyes of some cult?"

"Some people just don't believe in hope being beyond the Walls."

 _Hope,_ Shinji thought for a moment. _That's something we really need during times of desperation._

-x-

With the word of several members of the Wall Cult found dead in the Shinganshina District, along with the possibility that they had been after the Eva's pilot, the Survey Corps had to make sure that he, as the only person capable of operating the purple giant, was kept safe from assassination, as he was part of their operation to take back the lands beyond the Walls.

Shinji had taken an extensive course on what the Wall Cult was all about and learned about a previous cult that was referred to as the Titan Cult, a bunch of people that were suicidal and worshiped the Titans over seventy years ago, and how they murdered an entire family to capture someone referred to as the Titan's Son, someone that survived being eaten by a Titan before they even took their first breath of life. As far as he could suspect, the Titan Cult was likely to be an offshoot of the Wall Cult taken to a different extreme.

"Hard to believe that some people are so afraid of the world beyond the Walls to the point where they're willing to hurt people to keep them within the Walls, isn't it?" Armin asked Shinji.

"Yeah," he agreed with him. "But we're giving hope back to the people and everything. How can they perceive hope as being wrong and that the Walls are the only thing that will keep them safe from what lies beyond them?"

"It's been decades, maybe even centuries now, after learning of some recently discovered details that were never included in our history, and we have to do whatever it is that we can to ensure that we take back the world and show the people that there is a future for them outside."

"That's what I'd like," Shinji sighed about his desire. "A future, one that I can embrace freely and without some sort of fear of the unknown."

"You kinda remind me of Eren right now," Armin told him. "He wants to see the world outside the Walls, too. And he wants to see the Titans stopped for good."

"Is he the one that can turn into a Titan and fought the other ones before I arrived?"

"Yeah, that's him. He even named the Titan he turns into, which I find…appropriate for the situation he was in at the time when Trost was invaded. The Rogue Titan."

"Rogue Titan? Rogue Titan… Yes, that would make sense, seeing as a rogue would behave or act differently from others that follow a pattern of behavior. I should know what he looks like as the Rogue Titan, just in case we're both dealing with Titans on the battlefield, even though I see that possibility as being unlikely, to avoid attacking an ally."

"Yeah, that's right, you've never seen Eren's Titan form. It's quite a formidable form for a fifteen-meter Titan that's different from what he looks like as himself. Eren's hair grows long enough to graze his shoulders, with his tongue and ears also becoming elongated. His Titan form's facial features sport a prominent, hooked nose, his eyes, which are green, are deeply sunken within the sockets of his skull, and his mouth takes on an unusual, jagged shape that's completely unsuited for any form of coherent speech, though he's capable of howling and roaring at people and things. There's no lips or flesh to make up his cheeks, so all of his teeth are always exposed. When compared to the majority of the other Titans we've encountered so far, Eren's Titan form is well-proportioned and, seemingly, more physically fit, as it sports a well-defined, lean, muscle appearance in lieu of the pot-bellied or emaciated-looking Titans we face."

"Like a person that likes to work out and build up their muscular appearance…but runs enough to be fast enough to evade or dodge assaults."

"Yeah."

"A balance between strength, speed and agility. The body is conditioned to be able to deal with taking punishment and giving punishment."

-x-

"…So, if Eren has this power to defeat the Titans now," went Levi to the group that had accompanied the Titan Shifter to the Yeager home, "and the royal family had this power for years, how do we go about defeating the Titans and retaking the world?"

"Since they could've stopped the Titans, but chose not to, not even explaining why, the Reiss royal family must be charged with treason against humanity," went Mikasa, stating the obviousness of the situation, "and once Eren masters this power, we can stop the Titans once and for all."

"My father's notes stated that this Coordinate power could be influenced by the memories of the Reiss family, but someone unaffiliated with them would be unaffected by their memories, allowing them to use the power without hindrance," said Eren, following what his father's notes stated. "They also said I would be able to use it when in the presence of the Titans."

"But that's if we encounter the Titans again," a male member of the Survey Corps expressed. "We haven't seen them within forty miles of Wall Maria. They're probably somewhere near or within the ruins of places yet to be retaken, hiding from us."

"It's not us that they're probably hiding from," a female member corrected him. "It's the purple giant that can devour them."

-x-

"Is everyone ready?" Shinji asked the Survey Corps, as they were preparing to travel to one of the ruins further from where they had already begun establishing the foundation of a new settlement.

"Yeah, we're secured, Shinji," went Armin, as he and the rest of the crew were tied to the platform.

Within Unit-01, Shinji picked up the platform and sprinted across the land towards the ruins.

"Oh!" One of the men gasped; most of them never got over the rushing feeling they experienced whenever the Eva carried them to their next location for expansion.

"I don't think we're ever going to get over this feeling," Armin sighed.

One of the only benefits of traveling by means of the Eva instead of their horses was the fact that it could move faster than anything they had. This form of travel, among the benefit of having an edge against the Titans and a humanoid able to power itself by feasting on the enemy themselves.

Shinji could see the sight of where they were heading, and came to a halt by a shoreline…showing the Survey Corps an impressive view of the vast ocean.

"Whoa," went Mikasa, never seeing the ocean before.

"It's amazing," added Armin.

Shinji agreed with Armin about the ocean being amazing, and it was the first time he saw an ocean that wasn't affected by an environmental disaster or the explosion of a creature of unknown origin experimented upon by people. If this world was as different from the world he came from, there was bound to no trace of any buildings or machines in the lower depths.

It was almost enough to make him forget about any possibility of ever returning to his world.

Almost.

-x-

With as large an army as it could amass, the Titan that looked nothing like the humanoid ones that were seen was preparing to seek out this giant that towered the largest of them ever made…and put an end to its existence before it put an end to their presence.

-x-

The Earth looked peaceful in the vastness of space between the sun and the moon. Until something bright red appeared on the surface of one of its landmasses.

-x-

"…That call was from the NERV branch in Nevada," Ritsuko informed Misato, later the very same day that said branch was running their experiment on Evangelion Unit-04 to install the S² Engine salvaged from the Fourth Angel. "Something happened that has raised much curiosity."

"What could've possibly happened over there that doesn't happen over here?" Misato asked her.

"They've opened a Dirac Sea."

"They what?!"

-x-

A giant hole in the ground of Nevada, the length of an aircraft carrier, filled with darkness, blocked off from the rest of the land to ensure the safety of civilians and whatever secrecy the NERV branch had left after Unit-04 was exposed.

The Eva itself was laying on the ground, several feet away from the hole, missing its right arm and leg, being ignored by the scientists in favor of the hole itself. With the loss of the S² Engine, the Eva had lost much of its value, as it was reconfigured to function with the engine, but would now have to be reconfigured again so that it would possess an internal system capable of working with an external power supply.

What had most of the NERV employees present on edge was what they saw for a moment appearing within the hole. It was only for less than a minute, but some were certain that they saw a giant, humanoid rising from the darkness, shrieking towards the sky, and then disappearing again.

"…It looked about fifteen-meters tall," a woman was describing the creature to a sketch artist, one of several that were present.

"…Its head had no skin on the mouth…"

"…It looked like it was strong enough to rip trees out of the ground…"

"…Like a giant, naked man, but with no genitals…"

Adding the descriptions altogether, the sketch artists deduced the creature to have been a fifteen-meter-tall giant of a humanoid (which would explain the witnesses' details of it being nude), and probably a mutation of some sort that NERV was responsible for.

-x-

"…This must've been a city before the Titans appeared," went Shinji, examining the tall structures further away on the coast. "This was a coastal city. A city by the water."

"Why would people build cities by the water?" Armin asked him.

"I don't know why, exactly, but some of them were, in my world, always well-known for being seen as tourist attractions."

"Tourist attractions?"

"That means that they brought people from other places to spend their time and money there, making it popular to visit, over and over again."

"Would they had lived off the resources of being near the water?"

"No, not if the cities were melting pots where people from other parts of the world pooled their owns resources to live off of."

"Melting pots? I never heard of such a term, but it seems right."

Rumble! The ground suddenly shook, and the Survey Corps became cautious.

"What was that?" One of the men asked.

"An earthquake, perhaps?" Another man suggested.

"No, that was not an earthquake. They're random and jagged. It was probably just a slight tremor caused by a change in the tectonic plates underground." Shinji explained; sometimes, the Survey Corps and those that lived behind the Walls and pursued careers in relative safety, were unaware of the extensive knowledge that Shinji possessed, and it, whenever it was necessary to share it, was another detail that made Shinji invaluable.

Rumble! The ground shook again, with more intensity, and this time they knew why.

"Titans," went Mikasa.

Shooting their cables upward, towards the tall buildings that stood since God-knows-when, the fighters got a better look at their approaching enemy.

"Oh, no," one of the female members gasped, as none of them were anticipating this new wave of fear. "They're like the Colossal."

From a distance, they didn't look like much, but the Survey Corps was certain that the Titans they saw approaching the ruins from the eastern side by the water were of the same height as the Colossal Titan, as they lacked skin on their bodies and were generating steam.

"Hey, you see that Titan in front of them?" Armin questioned, looking at the ground where the Titans marched. "That one's different from the rest."

The Titan he saw looked like it was heavily mutated, with fur covering every inch of its being, and it possessed long arms and an ape-like face. In addition, it must've been at least seventeen-meters tall.

"Shinji, you and Unit-01 take on the big ones," Levi ordered him, "and Eren takes that seventeen-meter one. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Shinji, inside Unit-01, responded, and took out the Progressive knife.

Eren, with his thoughts focused only on facing the seventeen-meter Titan, jumped from the building and bit into his thumb, causing a blast of intense heat and a flash of light, and in his place, slamming onto the ground, was the fifteen-meter Titan that had helped mankind retake the Trost District of Wall Rose, ready to take on the enemy.

The Rogue Titan had returned.

A/N: It was my birthday on the fifth of this month. I thought I could have this finished by then, but I was wrong. What do you think of Eren christening his Titan identity as the Rogue Titan and Shinji adding clarity to the reason and asking for a description of said Titan so as to avoid fighting and devouring an ally? Review, please. Peace out!


	7. Unleash the Power

Creation began on 06-07-15

Creation ended on 06-23-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Unleash the Power

Although it was from relative safety, the Survey Corps cheered both Shinji and Eren on as they fought the Colossal and Beast Titans, respectively. And it was a tough battle that appeared to be in mankind's favor.

While they were of similar height to the Colossal that they were familiar with, these new ones were just as helpless against Shinji and Unit-01, which still had over eight hours of power that would ensure that the Eva was the stronger of them all.

The Rogue Titan, driven to take out the Titans and save mankind from extinction (with the understanding that the purple behemoth was an ally and not an enemy), it tackled the Beast Titan to the ground and began tearing into its torso.

 _I'll kill them all,_ thought the Rogue Titan, which was Eren's thoughts amplified by the Titan power.

-x-

"…We're about to send in a probe," a robotics expert informed Major Katsuragi, monitoring the Dirac Sea of the NERV-Nevada branch. "So far, the Dirac Sea seems stable."

"Good," Misato expressed, wondering just what was in this Dirac Sea, a small part of her hoping that it could lead NERV to Shinji and Unit-01.

Near the edge of the Dirac Sea, a small satellite was being lowered into the anomaly and the MAGI from NERV HQ in Japan worked in tandem with the satellite.

"So far, everything's tracking," went Maya Ibuki, working on a portable terminal. "Recording systems operating at capacity. And…oh…my…God."

"What is it?" Misato questioned, taking a look at the terminal's monitor. "What the…"

The first picture the satellite took upon entering the Dirac Sea…was a large landscape.

"It looks like this thing really does connect to another dimension," said Ritsuko, also monitoring the satellite's recoding systems.

The next picture the satellite's systems took was even greater than the previous picture: The landscape…a large wall that surrounded a settlement, and people wandering around on the ground.

"My God," Maya expressed; she never would've believed it if she hadn't seen it for herself.

-x-

None of the Colossal Titans were able to touch Unit-01, as Shinji put into use the Eva's AT-Field, which caused the dozens of skinless giants to smash into an invisible wall between them and the purple giant, being reduced to pulp and bone fragments.

The Survey Corps watched in astonishment over the Eva's power against the Colossal Titans while the Rogue Titan decapitated the Beast Titan after dismembering its limbs.

It was like an explosion of sorts, but nobody capable of acknowledging this was present.

The Rogue Titan noticed something emerging from the remains of the Beast Titan's neck, and grabbed the area of flesh still connected to the body…and found a man! He squirmed in the Rogue Titan's hand, unable to get free.

"Grr!" The Rogue Titan growled, but then threw the man aside, right towards the buildings the Survey Corps were watching the battle from.

SLASH! Unit-01 had decapitated the last of the Colossal Titans with the Prog. Knife, sending them falling to the ground and evaporating.

Shinji looked around the place, but didn't see any more enemy Titans near or far. He then looked down at the Rogue Titan as it steamed like the Colossal Titans, and it fell to the ground. From out of its back, Eren emerged, exhausted.

"It looks like we did it, Eren," Shinji told him. "It looks like we did it. We stopped them."

-x-

"The probe sent us back pictures of this other world the Dirac Sea connects to," Ritsuko informed Gendo, showing him the photos gathered. "It's a human-populated world, same as this one, but the people there appear to live a very primitive life; there were no cars or planes seen."

"Was there any sign of Unit-01?" Gendo asked her.

"Nothing yet. The probe will be circling this foreign world until we can send in additional probes."

Gendo then dismissed her while he examined the photos. The geographic details and buildings caught by the probe's cameras had him unimpressed by the mere idea that the people that thrived in that world were at all primitive. Not scientifically advanced like their world was, but clearly intelligent enough to build walls and buildings. His only thought was whether or not Unit-01 was there, and, if so, could be retrieved and brought back to this world.

-x-

SPLASH! Water was dumped onto the man's head, reviving him from unconsciousness.

"Aaaurgh!" He gasped, shaking his head of the water and seeing the members of the Survey Corps surrounding him.

In addition, he had also been restrained and checked for anything that could cause a self-inflicted injury; after going over Grisha Yeager's notes, they discovered that the only way for a person possessing the power of the Titans could turn into one was through either self-infliction or some other form of injury that drew blood.

"Identify yourself," went Levi to him.

The man clamped his mouth closed.

"You try to draw blood, and you're dead," Levi threatened him, making it known that they knew what he was capable of. "I'll ask you again. Identify yourself."

But still, the man remained silent. Only his cruel glare made it known that he wasn't going to be intimidated by them.

-x-

With the departure of additional probes into the Dirac Sea, NERV was able to retrieve more images from the world beyond it. Several of these new images were of the settlement walled off from the rest of the world, revealing that there were three large walls surrounding at least several kilometers of land and several settlements within smaller areas surrounding the walls.

"Judging from the size of these walls," went Ritsuko, examining several images using the MAGI, "they must around fifty meters or so in height."

"That would make them higher than the Great Wall of China and several other man-made barriers," added Misato, "but why would the people of this world need walls that high?"

A new image from a different probe showed something new and familiar to Central Dogma.

"It looks like he managed to survive the Angel's destruction after all," Ritsuko expressed, seeing the image of a running Evangelion Unit-01, carrying a small structure across the vast land.

"But…it's been over three months since the last Angel," Misato said, curious as to how the Eva was still able to function with little power in a world that seemed primitive because there were no signs of cars or planes.

-x-

"…What is the meaning of this?!" Rod Reiss demanded, as the Survey Corps barged into his domain with a stranger in chains and threw him to the ground in front of him.

"Treason, Rod Reiss," went Levi to him. "Your family is being charged with treason against the people for possessing a power that could defeat the Titans, but never using it, even after the fall of Wall Maria. You had a power called the Coordinate, that could control the Titans and affect the memories of the people, and you used it to keep the people in check instead of stopping the Titans."

"And what proof do you have of this accusation?"

-x-

To ensure that there were no surprises from the Titans, Shinji took Unit-01 to check the northern parts of Wall Maria, which he learned weren't affected by the Titans due to the cold weather and lack of activity. It was also a way for him to keep busy until he was needed by the Survey Corps in case of trouble with the royal family, which he had also learned were to be charged with treason for a severe crime against humanity. It was almost like what he had decided on with NERV ever since he first arrived at Tokyo-3, that they had committed a crime against humanity by having man-made giants that could only be used by teens and then having him pilot one against a creature he had no knowledge of and no training against. He allowed himself to overlook the foulness of what they did for as long as he could, but now wished he hadn't.

There were just too many secrets, too many half-truths, too many lies, and he couldn't live like that back home. And while there weren't that many of those here, he hoped to actually have a life here once the war with the Titans was over; the leftover flesh and pieces he had Unit-01 consume after the battle with the Colossal Titans had managed to increase the remaining time limit to over twenty hours, but if there weren't that many Titans left, the Eva would be running on fumes in due time. He wanted to hope that he could actually have a life after one of unwanted violence.

As he saw his first speck of snow, something he'd never seen in Japan because Second Impact had placed the nation in perpetual summer time, he saw no signs of larger-than-normal-sized people wandering around. Not even giants below fifteen meters.

 _It looks like everything's gone quiet,_ he thought, actually grateful that there were no Titans around the land between Walls Maria and Rose.

Beep! One of the sensors in the plug went, and Shinji pressed a button to answer the reason for this.

 _A satellite signal?_ He realized, as Unit-01 was picking up a signal from a satellite from space, something that should've been impossible. _But there shouldn't be any satellites anywhere in this world. There aren't even any planes. Nobody here has developed means of spaceflight or anything to break through the atmosphere._

-x-

"…The probe's being transmitted a response signal," went Hyuga to Ritsuko in Central Dogma. "It appears the Eva still has power."

"Okay, send the first question," Ritsuko responded.

Hyuga typed in, _"Are you Shinji Ikari?"_ and sent the message.

It took a few minutes…but then the probe sent back a response message: _"Who is asking?"_

Hyuga typed in, _"NERV."_ and sent the message.

" _This is Shinji Ikari."_ was what the bridge received from the probe they were using in the Dirac Sea.

 _He's alive,_ thought Misato, pleased to know that he was still among the living.

-x-

Shinji wasn't sure why he even answered the signal messages he was receiving somehow from NERV, but figured that he couldn't ignore them forever.

" _Have you found some sort of means to attempt communication?"_ was sent to him on the screen.

In front of him was a holographic keyboard that he used to type responses, and sent back, _"There have been no means of attempting communication. The kingdom has no technology to generate electrical energy or spaceflight."_

" _How long have you survived where you are?"_

" _Almost five months now."_

" _How have you been able to pilot the Eva without power?"_

That was had Shinji concerned now. The power the Eva had right now was immense and beneficial to the people here, but if NERV had the means to power their remaining Evas, sure, it would be helpful against the Angels, but he worried of the harm they could do in prolonged battles (he especially had grave concerns about the brutality Asuka demonstrated in her Eva).

" _Sheer willpower."_ He typed; he wasn't good at lying, but he wasn't going to risk being the source of any misuse of power. _"I've had to rely on that to help the people since I got here."_

-x-

"Sheer willpower, huh?" Ritsuko spoke up.

Gendo, who was also viewing these messages, didn't believe what his son was claiming to be what powered the Eva in the months it had been gone.

" _We're attempting to find a way to rescue you."_ The next message was typed down and sent to the probe to send to Unit-01.

" _Don't do that."_ Shinji had sent back.

 _What?_ Gendo thought; he would've believed that his son would've jumped at the chance to be rescued, but not decline on the possibility.

-x-

 _"Don't do that."_ Shinji had sent his response to the idea of being rescued by NERV. _"I'm actually okay here, and the people here need me and Unit-01 more."_

In actuality, he felt like he could actually make it here. Just prior to ever facing the Twelfth Angel, he had seen a film that had been based off a true story and a quote resonated with him: _"If you can take it, you can make it."_ While NERV and his father could view this as him running away, he couldn't view it as that, as he never ran to begin with when tried to face the last Angel, but ended up here instead as a consequence, and now he was trying to survive here and help the people that can't defend themselves.

" _You can't give up like that. There's a Dirac Sea in Nevada. We've sent probes through it, and it seems to connect with the spacial area of the planet you're on."_

" _I'm not giving up. I simply don't wish to return. I'm needed more here."_

" _You're just running away again."_

Somehow, Shinji recognized those words as coming from his father, but they seemed hollow right now.

" _If you've seen what the people here have had to hide from for over a century, you probably wouldn't be saying that."_ He typed in and sent to NERV. _"Giant man-eaters that look like them, always trying to get to them, around the clock, without quit. They were being pushed to the brink of extinction before I ever showed up. They were about to be pushed further down by a giant they referred to as the Colossal Titan, a massive of a humanoid without skin, constantly steaming, and at sixty-meters in height. I stopped it, killed it, and started giving the people back their future. How can you expect me to simply leave them when they're about to take back their world with my assistance?"_

" _Their war is theirs, not ours."_

" _I can't turn my back on them now. I will not forsake them in their time of need."_

And then, before the next message could be received, Shinji terminated the transmission.

"If I can take it, I can make," he uttered to himself. "If I can take it…I can make it."

-x-

"…He can't have possibly meant all of that, right?" Maya asked, trying to reestablish the connection the probe had with Unit-01.

But nobody answered her. They were too wrapped up in their own thoughts over how they were short an Eva and a pilot against the Angels…and how the pilot in question simply didn't want to return because he had some other obligation to help strangers to take back their world.

-x-

"…Heard several members of the Wall Cult were exposed after the Reiss family was dethroned," went Armin to Mikasa, hearing the small rumor that some people of the wealthier families were exposed to having ties to the cult that viewed the Walls as sacred.

"That's right," she answered him. "It was also discovered that Rod Reiss had an illegitimate child that we're currently looking for now. What will happen to them when we find them is unknown, but it is likely that they will be questioned and later pardoned for their illegitimacy."

"And the Military Police?"

"They tried to defend Rod Reiss, but they had no choice but to stand down. The evidence that proved the Reiss family had possession of this power that could stop the Titans and control people was undeniable. Eren almost had to transform when the stranger we captured tried to transform, but I knocked him out before he had the chance."

"Shinji returned from checking for any Titan activity around the Walls. He reported no trace of any of the Titans in the northern regions. It seems like the spaces between Walls Maria and Rose have been cleared of them since he and his Eva arrived."

"And because of them, the list of casualties have dropped to almost nothing. Everything's changing."

"I don't think I can imagine what we might've done had Shinji not shown up when he did that day the Colossal Titan appeared again. It's been one thing after another ever since he appeared with his Eva."

If it got any worse with the people, specifically the nobles, within the Walls, those unafraid to venture beyond them would take what they could and see the world that was to be theirs once again. It was also most likely that there were other members of the Wall Cult that didn't believe that people were meant to venture beyond the Walls, but there was very little that they could now that the truth was being revealed, bits by bits until the puzzle that they fitted into became a complete picture.

-x-

"…So that baka's alive, but he's in another world…and he doesn't wanna come back to this one?" Asuka asked Misato, who informed her that Shinji was still among the living. "What about his Eva? Shouldn't that thing be out of power?"

"As far as he even divulged, Unit-01 still works, but the world he's currently in doesn't have any means to generate electricity," Misato told her. "He claimed that he was helping people that were on the brink of extinction, and that he couldn't forsake them just because we were going to attempt to rescue him."

"What could he possibly face in that world that could push people to the point of extinction?"

"Giant man-eaters that look like people. He even stopped one that was sixty-meters and had no skin."

"That sounds ridiculous."

"The only thing is I believe him. He says he's helping them take back their world, and he'd rather stay there. Though, his father's probably going to demand that, if we ever get in contact with him again, that he surrender Unit-01 to NERV."

"Well, that would be the logical thing to do, as it is NERV property."

"And then Shinji would be unable to help the people, so he needs the Eva to help them take back their world, no matter what the commander believes."

-x-

People were preparing to venture out of the Walls after the last report from the Survey Corps showed no sign of Titan activity (with the swarm of Colossal Titans dealt with by Unit-01 and the Beast Titan dealt with by Eren, the Titan activity declined further). While the majority of the wealthier citizens were against the poorer citizens leaving the safety of the Walls, and that the Evangelion was going to be going with them, there was little that they could about it.

Shinji wouldn't have called it the most efficient form of transportation for the number of citizens being transported, but to remove a building from its foundation and be able to carry across the vast lands to the new location outside the Walls was suggested by Captain Levi, as the Eva was capable of lifting such an immense amount. Though, he had to remove the building chosen to carry the citizens first, which eliminated the risk of harming them.

"Is everyone ready?" He asked through the Eva's speakers.

"Everyone is secured," responded Armin to him, as everybody was tied down to safety bars and rails.

Shinji then had Unit-01 pick up the building and began to traverse across the land beyond Wall Maria.

A little girl looked out a nearby window, and saw the land look like a blur as they were being relocated to their new residence.

"Mommy, how fast are we going?" She asked her mother.

"I don't know, but it must be really fast," her mother expressed, unsure of how fast this purple giant was capable of moving.

Shinji had brought the building carrying nearly one-hundred-twenty people to the ruins of the city by the ocean and set the building down, allowing them to step out and view the world they were to reclaim in due time.

"What is that, Daddy?" A boy asked his father, pointing to the ocean.

"That's the ocean, son," he answered him.

To be continued…

A/N: And here's the seventh chapter of _Hope from the Sky_.


	8. Expansion

Creation began on 06-24-15

Creation ended on 08-01-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Expansion

It took less than forty pickups within the course of an hour, but by the time that had been achieved, the Walls' population had been reduced to just the wealthier citizens and the weaker members of the Military Police that didn't want to venture beyond the Walls, most likely to around forty percent. And the people that willingly left were relocated to the ruins by the ocean to reclaim them and begin further expansion.

The towns around Walls Maria and Rose had been completely emptied, and those still within Wall Sina's towns had been infuriated by the abandonment they felt due to the speedy relocation caused by the purple giant that drove the Titans away from the Walls.

While Shinji did feel bad for the people left behind in the Walls, it was their choice to stay where they felt it was the only place for them, that the rest of the world wasn't meant for them. And there were the plans to travel across the ocean and continue expanding the rebuilding of mankind, and Shinji would be involved to ensure protection against the Titans if there were any across the sea. He didn't mind it at all, but doubt that there were any ships big enough to carry an Eva (as he had informed the Survey Corps and the Garrison that while Unit-01 was tough in its own right, it was unsuited for any degree of combat underwater because of its armor configuration being the standard type and before they were stranded here, no research was effective in creating an armor suited for underwater conflict).

The buildings the citizens explored or even moved into were tall and sturdy, probably still durable from the day they were finished long ago, and the metal infrastructures hadn't shown a single decline in their durability, being re-purposed as homes for the citizens.

"The soil's rich with nutrients," a man said to several others as they evaluated the condition of a large patch of land away from the ocean. "Let's begin converting this place for our agricultural needs."

-x-

"…So he's alive, then?" Toji and Kensuke asked Asuka, who informed the Third Child's friends of his current status in this other world, the next day after she was informed by Misato.

"Yeah," she told them, "and he says he's not coming back."

"Why would he not come back?" Kensuke asked. "There's still the Angels here."

"He claims that the people that exist there need him more, something about some giant man-eaters that look like people attacking them."

"Giants? Like actual giants? From mythology?" Toji asks.

"Maybe."

"And is NERV really going to forget about him?"

"Don't know for sure, though the commander will probably want the Eva back."

Toji and Kensuke looked at one another and knew from the personal experience of Shinji that his father wasn't a nice guy and was beyond the capacity to establish a positive relationship with.

-x-

"…It could be an aircraft carrier," said Shinji to Levi, as the Survey Corps had found a large, rusty ship that was still in the water that seemed seaworthy and able to transport the Eva across the ocean. "Um, a large boat made of metal that was designed with the intention to carry aircraft, planes that could fly some distance in the air, making the process of getting from one place to another more efficient for the crew."

"And these…aircraft carriers," Levi responded to the young man, "they would be in the water most of the time?"

"Yes," Shinji answered him. "They served in military forces, such as the Navy and Marines, groups that fought on or near large bodies of water. Most were powered by nuclear energy because they lasted longer than other types of energy sources, but the people in charge of maintaining them had to be careful around them because nuclear material was difficult to handle and could cause large problems if they were ever compromised."

"But…if this ship could run, and we're careful with it…then we can use it travel across the ocean to other land masses, right?"

"Yes, we could."

Levi had to remind himself that Shinji's knowledge was derived from the history he picked up from his own world and the people he interacted with, and that just because he knew a little about things they knew nothing about, he didn't have any experience with said things. There was a difference between developing the ODM gear for use against the Titans and using it against the Titans.

-x-

"…We were successful in retrieving this probe," a retrieval expert under NERV's employment in the Nevada branch informed Major Katsuragi over the phone to NERV HQ in Japan. "It seems like the Dirac Sea can't take in and keep in whatever goes in it."

"That's good," went Misato, and then handed the phone to Ritsuko.

-x-

The more Eren achieved a Titan transformation, the more he control he obtained. While still limited to being the fifteen-meter variety of Titan that he could become, he could now demonstrate the type of power that his father's notes stated he now possessed; he could now exhibit a degree of control over the Titans.

Two Titans, a four-meter one and a seven-meter one, had been captured after the reclamation of the Troost District and kept confined at all times. With the relocation of the citizens of Walls Maria and Rose, these Titans were also relocated to ensure that the Survey Corps had a means to understand what the Titans were capable of and what Eren could do with this Coordinate power he had.

So far, Eren could make the two stand still and ignore humans, walk in circles, sit down, and now he had them digging trenches for agriculture.

"Incredible," went Mikasa, supervising the two Titans that Eren (in his Titan form) controlled with some effort.

"Um, excuse me, miss?" A female voice went to Mikasa, who then turned to see that it was a girl around the age of a young teen, with gray hair and blue eyes.

"May I help you?" Mikasa asked her.

"I was wondering if you knew where I could find the boy that rides the purple giant," she told Mikasa.

 _She must be one of those people wanting to thank Ikari for his contribution to defending and helping mankind retake the world,_ she thought. "He's over by the waterfront with several others."

"Thank you."

The girl than walked away, and Mikasa noticed that the girl had a flower in her left hand.

-x-

"…It looks like this aircraft carrier has a designation," a female member of the Survey Corps, flaking off several decades worth of rust and dust off the side of the large ship they intended to use to travel the ocean. "It looks like it says… _'Abraham Lincoln'_. A ship that was named after someone?"

"It's been known to happen," a male member responded, using a broom and garbage bin to sweep up as much of the cobwebs and broken glass as possible.

Suddenly, an echo of churning, roaring and hissing sounds reverberated throughout the corners of the ship, alerting the people inside.

"Um, is this thing on?" A new voice, a male one, came up on the ship's speakers. "If anyone can hear my voice, this ship has now become fully operational, power-wise. The engines are up and running."

 _They managed to get it up and running,_ thought Shinji, as he carefully put Unit-01 on the carrier and powered down to conserve its massive power reserves. _But will it run?_

As the Entry Plug ejected from the Eva and expelled the LCL, the pilot climbed out of the plug and onto the flight deck of the carrier.

"Is it always a risk on your life when you get into that giant?" A female voice asked him.

He turned to face the person, and saw it was the same, young girl from that night in the reclaimed Shiganshina District.

"It's not as hazardous as it was back home… Back where I was from," he told her. "It's easier against the Titans than the other monsters I used to face back then. But I don't want to jinx anything by saying it out loud."

A soft breeze came and the wind pushed up the girl's skirt.

Before Shinji could turn his head to avoid seeing anything, the wind revealed only a pair of trousers beneath the girl's skirt.

"Sorry about that," she apologized to him.

"Don't be, I didn't see anything I wasn't supposed to," he responded, grateful for the lack of surprise. "But what brings you here?"

"To see you again."

"Oh."

"Oh, it's… It's not like I'm an obsessed fan or anything. I…I like seeing you…and talking to you."

"That's good, talking to others."

She looked at the purple giant and then back at him.

"So…what can we talk about?" She asked him.

"Well, introductions would be a good place to start. I'm Shinji Ikari."

"Kaede Sogen."

"I'm fourteen years old."

"I'm fourteen years old, as well. Fourteen years, three months, and four days."

"I'm helping the people by using this construct to defend them from the Titans and retake the lands taken over by them."

"I'm a civilian, formerly from the Shiganshina District, then my family relocated to the Troost District…and then we relocated back to the Shiganshina District…and now we're helping to rebuild and expand the ruins of the city the Survey Corps helped to find."

"My favorite color is blue. My least favorite colors are white and red. And…I play the cello from time to time."

"My favorite color is green. My least favorite colors are also white and red. And…my mother insisted that I play the piano."

"I'm an only child. My mother past away when I was little…and my father left me in the care of a man for the last ten years of my life. We were never close."

"My father died a year before the Titans attacked the Shiganshina District. My mother remarried, but my stepfather and I…were never close. I just thought my mother would cherish my father's memory until she past away, but then she married another man almost a month after he past away."

"I don't even remember what my mother looks like…and my father threw away every photo of her."

"I don't really remember what my father looks like, either…only that he had gray hair, same as mine."

"How much do we seem to have in common?"

"We seem to both have absent parents, deceased parents that we have little to no memory of, and we both want a future of happiness in a world that's free of the Titans."

"Yeah, that's true. It's nice to talk with you, Ms. Sogen."

"Please, call me Kaede. There's no need to be so formal, Mr. Ikari."

"Okay, then, only if you call me Shinji…since we're breaking from the formalities."

"Eh-heh!"

Suddenly, several birds (seagulls) flew up from behind Kaede and she gasped in fear, trying to flee.

Shinji caught her and held her in an attempt to calm her down.

"It's okay, it's okay," he calmed her. "It's just a bunch of seagulls."

She calmed down and looked at the fleeing birds. She then realized that she was being held by Shinji, and quickly backed away.

"Sorry," she apologized to him.

-x-

"…So Unit-03 should be transported here the day after tomorrow," Ritsuko informed Misato of the status of the new Eva.

"Great," the purple-haired woman responded, as they were in the NERV cafeteria.

"Still against Commander Ikari's decision?"

"If Shinji decides to not return, then we shouldn't try to enter a world we don't know much about, except from his point of view, even if it's just to reclaim the Eva that he's using to help the people that reside there."

Ritsuko then took out a folder and set it in front of her friend.

"A lotta time with the MAGI and the satellites and a little patience get you greater results than what you were initially looking for," she told her. "Every time Unit-01 was active, it was recording all that it saw in that world. These…are the creatures Shinji is using the Eva to protect the people from."

Misato looked through the pictures and saw what Shinji had gone up against. Some of these pictures were of the Colossal Titan, before and after it was cut to pieces, and several other photos were of the lesser Titans, all of them looking like people, abnormally larger or inhumanly deformed and as bare as the day they were made.

"My God," she shuddered.

"It gets better," Ritsuko added, showing another picture without the Titans and occupied with numbers. "He lied about how he was able to keep the Eva moving. This…is how he really gets the Eva to continue functioning."

The other pictures showed the Eva's hands grabbing at the smaller Titans…and Misato had to use her imagination to picture the purple behemoth devouring them as though they were a type of food source.

"So he lied to us about how he was able to power the Eva while he was there," she told her. "He must've had a reason to."

"Somehow, he's able to use these creatures to restore power to the Eva. Better than restore, extends the Eva's time limits. It's currently over ten hours of operational power. An Evangelion with that much power could prove to be more valuable against the Angels."

"But against these…creatures, it's a one-man army, and the people placed on the brink of extinction need it to take back their world."

"And yet, we need Unit-01 to face the Angels or else we're done for."

-x-

Examining the photos taken from Unit-01's recording systems, Gendo evaluated the remarkable power it obtained from consuming these giant humanoids from the other world it was in. He imagined the other Evas endowed with the same degree of power from these creatures, enabling them to fight for longer time periods, to face the Angels longer without an Umbilical Cable to provide external energy. And what fascinated him a little more was the sight of a young man turning into one of these creatures and fighting against another creature that looked more primate-like than human. It was such a power that could've aided well in the war against the Angels.

No matter what happened, he wanted Unit-01 back in NERV's possession, and if there were any of these giants left in that world his son was in, he wanted at least a few of them for research and development purposes.

-x-

It was a tough decision, but it was one they needed to make. The Survey Corps had decided that Eren would stay behind to watch the people to ensure that were no surprise attacks from the Titans (this included the two they had in their possession), and Shinji would go overseas with the members aboard the carrier to see if there were lands they could reclaim from the Titans that could've been there. This way, they could be assured that there was no trouble on either side of the ocean.

As Shinji observed the vast ocean in front of him, he had to wonder how Kaede, who he thought had gotten off the carrier, wind up helping around the carrier along with him instead. Of course, since his combat training revolved around using the Eva, he had to make up for his uselessness as a noncombatant in other ways, which included his culinary skills, which the Survey Corps members aboard the ship praised him for, as many of them hadn't had a good meal in years.

While Kaede had some skill in cooking, hers paled in comparison to Shinji's, since she had only started just the previous year and openly admitted to sucking at it.

" _Practice makes perfect, Kaede,"_ Shinji had told her, _"and if you enjoy what you love, you get good at it. Even amateurs had to start somewhere before they progressed to where they ended up."_

"Hey, Shinji!" He heard Armin call out to him, and he turned around to face him.

"Yeah?" He responded.

"Miss Sogen needs your help in the kitchen again. She says she doesn't, but it's become a sign that she does each time she declines."

Shinji nodded and obliged, following him to the galleys where Kaede currently was at the moment. Initially, he had been surprised by the fact that this ship had more than one kitchen aboard it, and that Kaede wasn't doing anything but sitting down by a stove.

"Kaede, I was told that you needed my help down here," he told her.

"Huh? I needed help? They told me you needed my help, and that I should wait in here for you." She told him.

Clank! They both turned and saw the door to the kitchen closed and sealed.

"Aw, man!" Shinji groaned; they had both been deceived by some of the Survey Corps' members. "We've been had, Kaede."

"Sorry."

"No, don't be. It's not your fault. People do this sometimes, play tricks on others."

They then began the preparations for the night's meals for the others.

Kaede had learned a lot more about cooking from Shinji in the time they spent together, learning of newer recipes and adding different ingredients or seasonings to regular meals. And Shinji had someone to talk to as they cooked together. There was only so much one could do in their silence around the kitchen.

"Kaede, tell me what you think of this flavor, please," Shinji requested, holding a spoon of a reddish-yellow sauce adorned with several spices.

Kaede tasted the sauce…and quickly ran to the sink for some water.

"Ah," she panted. "Too hot."

"Sorry about that," he apologized. "Looks like we're going mild here."

"Yeah, I have an aversion to hot and spicy foods. I should've told you."

"Hot and spicy foods? No aversion to hot foods?"

"Hot foods, I can handle. Hot foods that are spicy, I have to have a cold beverage to wash the flavor out. Have you ever had an aversion to spicy foods, Shinji?"

"I have, but I learned to tolerate them over time."

-x-

As scheduled, Unit-03 arrived to Japan after being removed from American soil due to the failed experiment with Unit-04 and the S² Engine.

Misato and Ritsuko saw it set foot on the ground, and the NERV crew members present went to work on transferring it to the Matsushiro facility for its startup test.

"So, who's going to be the pilot?" Misato asked Ritsuko.

"The Marduk Institute is still searching for the Fourth Child," the faux-blond responded.

"And the operation to enter the Dirac Sea?"

"First, a squadron will be sent through it, and once they establish a base and contact with the people there, they will try to convince Shinji to return with Unit-01."

"And if that don't work?"

"Either the First or Second Child will be sent to retrieve the pilot and Eva."

This was something Misato was still against, and only because Shinji made the conscious decision on not returning after wanting to help these people on the brink of extinction from these giants that hunted them over time. She even feared that there was some other reason to sending another Eva to retrieve the lost one that became a lot more than a killing machine against the Angels.

-x-

"…I've never done anything like this before, Shinji," Kaede told him as they were on the deck of the carrier, away from the rest of the Survey Corps, enjoying their dinner.

"Me, neither, Kaede," Shinji confessed to her, taking another bite out of his bread roll to absorb the sauce of his pasta. "But I believed we needed to get away from the craziness of the ship."

Beside Unit-01, the two were atop a blanket so that they could enjoy their meal while looking up at the stars and listen to the ocean waves. Some would probably view this as a date of romantic proportions, while others would wonder what the two were doing.

"Kaede, I have to ask, just how did you get lost on the carrier after we met?" Shinji asked her.

Kaede sighed and responded, "I asked that man, Armin, to show me the way to the deck, but after we were done talking, I tried to guide myself back to the exit used to get onto the carrier. Unfortunately, I'm a lousy self-guider and couldn't find the way back. By the time I got back to the deck, the ship had already set sailed, so I couldn't get off. My unintentional stowing away was not something I expected."

"Well, I'm kinda glad you got lost and…unintentionally stowed away."

"Yet, I could get in the way if there are Titans."

"Even if there are Titans where we're heading, you forget that I pilot a behemoth that can consume them to make itself stronger. And I will do all that I can to ensure the safety of the people, including you, Kaede."

"Thank you."

Unknown to the pair, several corps members (including Armin) were eavesdropping on the two.

"Aw, come on, you guys," went Armin to the others. "This is totally unnecessary."

"You seriously need a girlfriend, Armin," said one of the men to him.

"Wow," they heard Shinji utter. "Your eyes are like sapphire in the moonlight."

From his perception, Shinji saw Kaede's eyes shine brightly in the moonlight.

"Sorry about that," he apologized to her. "That probably sounded rather corny to hear."

"No, of course not," Kaede responded to him. "Any girl would like hearing that. I mean, there must have been dozens of girls back where you're from that admired you."

Shinji's memories of Tokyo-3 and the people in it made him think less of the past few months he'd ever spent there after meeting his father and knowing why he had been sent for.

"No, not really," he told her. "They only admired me for piloting the Eva, not for me. There was even my fellow pilots, both girls that knew more than I ever could, and my relationship with them was anything but a relationship."

"Why?"

"One of them, Ayanami, Rei, was closer to my father than I hoped to be myself, and her relationship with him seemed all that mattered to her. And the other, Asuka Langley Soryu, wasn't a girl that you could go near without some sort of consequence because of her ego. It was like she hated everyone around her, and the thing of it is that nobody did anything to her. She's always invasive of other people's personal space, and feels that she's superior just because she can pilot the Eva. Not long after our first encounter did she always refer to me by some foul designation, like 'Stupid Shinji', mostly just because I felt the need to ask questions I had no answers to, like why the so-called enemy was called Angels or why we were fighting them. She never letup on anything she said or did to anyone."

Kaede placed her left hand over his right hand, hoping to quell his would-be anger over his past.

"I'm sorry that they didn't appreciate you for you," she apologized to him.

"Thank you, Kaede. That means a lot coming from you."

The boy then picked up his cup and sipped some more of his drink.

SWISH! Something flew past the carrier, high above in the sky, mirroring a shooting star of sorts.

"What was that?" Kaede asked Shinji.

"It could've been a shooting star, but it was a little too close, which would have made it a falling star. It's going to crash somewhere on the ground on in the water."

-x-

If only Shinji or the Survey Corps knew any better about the falling star, they would've known that it wasn't even close to what Unit-01's pilot had assumed, but a space shuttle, having entered through the Dirac Sea and into the planet's atmosphere, setting a landing course towards a large patch of ground.

It managed to make a safe landing on the ground and opened up its top to unfold a satellite antenna.

"This is _New Traveler_ , contacting NERV HQ," a male voice spoke out from within the craft. "Come in, NERV HQ. The _New Traveler_ has arrived onto foreign world. Over."

"Communication with _New Traveler_ received," a female voice responded upon receiving transmission. "Confirm establishment of communication with natives ASAP. Over."

-x-

"…Looks like they made it into foreign territory," said Ritsuko in Central Dogma.

"The sooner they are able to try and convince the people there to relinquish Unit-01, the better," expressed Gendo, wondering if these people would follow such a request to forfeit the Eva without a fight from the squadron sent there.

To be continued…

A/N: What do think so far? The fact that they found an aircraft carrier can make readers assume that the world of _Attack on Titan_ is set somewhere far in the future from our present-day world, and Shinji's help to their expansion operations is invaluable to their hopes of retaking the world. But now NERV has sent people over to attempt to reclaim the Eva and, if possible, some Titans for their own purposes. And as for Shinji, he may have a chance at true love with someone that wants him for him, not as a pilot for the Eva.


	9. Demands

Creation began on 08-01-15

Creation ended on 08-18-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Demands

Two weeks at sea, and the wait was over for the Survey Corps. In front of the carrier was an island that seemed about eight miles across, quite big for, perhaps, thousands of people to live on.

"Looks like it's going to be a very good day," said Shinji to Kaede.

Taking a smaller boat (revealed to be a hovercraft by Shinji after he got a look at the vehicle), the Survey Corps traveled closer to the Island, finding the shattered remains of a former pier that looked ancient. Because the pier was useless, they just came onto the ground and stopped.

The path they found led them to a small town, covered in layers of dirt and weeds, occupied by some deers, squirrels, raccoons, birds and small bears.

"Let's start looking for Titans," Levi ordered, and the corps members spread out over the place.

-x-

Activating the Eva, Shinji, under orders from Levi, brought the purple giant to the island (after a corps member was able to confirm the shallowness of the water for the Eva to traverse in safely). With the Eva's eyes, the Survey Corps would have a better chance of finding any Titans and reclaiming the place for future habitation. But if he didn't detect any Titans, he would be informed of their presence by means of a red-colored, signal flare.

 _The trees are so dense, you can't see anything below it,_ he thought, trying to keep focused on the color of flares used on missions. _Okay, red for spotting Titans, black is for spotting what they call an Abnormal, purple is for an emergency, blue is to retreat, and yellow is to indicate a mission has ended, either as a success or a failure._

"Facing giant people again, Third Child?" He heard a female voice that he now dreaded hearing, coming through to the intercom system.

He kept his calm and responded, "How and why are you communicating with me, Ms. Soryu?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out," the girl expressed.

He sighed and stayed on the task at hand, being on the lookout for a red signal flare.

"NERV knows the truth, and they want you to grow some sense and return with Unit-01," Asuka told him. "Just follow orders and return to NERV."

"I'm afraid I can't follow that order. I'm helping the people here retake the world and survive."

"Can you imagine how much the Eva would prove more effective against the Angels with an extended power source that comes from these giants that it has consumed? It would be a cakewalk! Imagine it!"

"I can…and it scares me what NERV would be capable of if they got a hold of this power. You'd be no better than the giants I've beaten. At least they have no desire for power or wealth. They just eat people…and they don't even need to. Could you imagine what might happen if they were able to cause problems in Japan? Or maybe Germany? They'd be just as problematic as the Angels are, and you wouldn't know how to stop them until it's too late. I'm not willing to take that risk."

-x-

Misato couldn't help but be impressed by Shinji's unwillingness to allow these giants to potentially invade this world and do whatever they did to the one he was now in.

"What harm would just two of them bring here?" Asuka asked.

"It wouldn't matter if the number were two or two-hundred," Shinji responded. "They're just too dangerous to let even NERV have, and need to be removed from existence."

-x-

And with that, Shinji terminated the communication between him and NERV. He really wanted the paramilitary agency to stop and leave him be; it was moot to try and convince him to try and return, as the repeated conflicts with the Angels, the lies and half-truths were beginning to weigh on his conscience because of the secrets nobody was willing to divulge on. And there wasn't much of this revolving around the Titans, as the Survey Corps, the Garrison and the access to copies of Eren Yeager's father's notes explained plenty of details. But what was depressing to him was the revelation that the Titans were once regular people long ago, until what was ambiguously assumed to be the Titan he learned of as the Beast Titan was the direct cause of their loss of free will and humanity.

Some of the corps members would've considered their deaths (because that was what it was to them now) a merciful release from an endless nightmare, and it took Kaede and her words of comfort to assure Shinji that, while he couldn't save the people that were turned into Titans long ago, he wasn't a murderer and that he was saving them all, the people that once lived within the safety of the Walls and were now living beyond them.

 _If the Beast Titan could turn people into Titans, nobody's safe from him,_ he thought, still looking for Titans and seeing none or a signal flare. _It's a good thing we have him incarcerated where he can't harm anyone._

-x-

While the Survey Corps had the expansion plans in control, the Garrison were tasked with keeping the Beast Titan confined to his human form and isolated from the rest of the people.

Confined to a dungeon within Wall Maria until Unit-01 returned for them, the man was chained, suspended from the ceiling, and put in front of a loaded cannon in case he tried to induce a transformation in front of the Garrison members tasked with watching him.

"Once the expansion plans are complete, I can't wait to get out of here," one of the men expressed to his friends. I want to see what the rest of the world looks like out there."

"I know what you mean," one of them responded. "I hear that there's supposed to be an ocean as far as the eye can see."

"An ocean of sand. A vast desert of sand and rocks."

"Valleys full of lush vegetation and animals."

"Cities and buildings that reach into the sky."

"I tell you, it's our greatest miracle that that kid and his purple giant appeared and turned the tide around for us."

The Beast Titan couldn't forget about the power that giant possessed against his army of Colossal Titans, which should have been invincible against it, how god-like it was and unstoppable in its fury. Against a Titan made larger than it, the purple giant probably wouldn't have stood a chance, but there were no Titans that could reach above the height of the Colossal Titans without having to be reduced to crawling on the ground. And then, there was the Coordinate ability that was taken from the Titans, which could've been used to bring about the end of them if they managed to control it.

-x-

Standing outside the boundaries of Wall Sina, Bertolt Hoover, having hidden since his defeat at the hands of the purple giant, decided to return to the Walls to see if anyone was left after seeing the giant make several trips to and from the Walls, carrying a building in its hands. If there were people left, he just hoped he could help them without hurting them like before when he could turn into a Titan.

"May I be forgiven," he told himself, worried about what he would find on the other side.

-x-

With their base setup, the squadron tasked with retrieving the Eva began the preparations for traveling to what looked like a city nearby, populated by some people. It was hoped that they would cooperate…if given an incentive to relinquish Unit-01.

"Let's move out," the guy in charge of the squadron ordered, and the small band of soldiers left towards the city.

-x-

"…If there were people here before," went Armin, as he and the other corps members regrouped after searching the entire island, "they're not here, anymore, and it looks like the Titans never came here."

In the Eva, Shinji, who never saw a flare or found any Titans around the damaged settlement, was helping to clear away the damaged buildings by removing them from off the ground, putting them into a pile to be burned away. While the lack of Titan activity was a beneficial reprieve for the Survey Corps, the task of making the island habitable for people was another task, and Shinji hoped to bring people still behind the Walls to places like this island.

 _Maybe Kaede and I could find a place here or wherever is next on the expansion plan,_ he thought.

Meanwhile, aboard the carrier, Kaede was preparing a large pot of soup for the crew when they returned for mealtime, using the skills she acquired from Shinji.

 _I wonder how well their mission went,_ she thought, adding several chopped veggies to the concoction.

-x-

With the discovery of these colored containers that were soon understood as garbage and recycling bins for waste disposal and redistributing, the city that was now seeing quite an opportunity to be expanded upon was now looking cleaner.

As a pair of kids were playing with some balls they found, they noticed some people that they were sure didn't belong with them walking through the streets. They were tough-looking and wearing strange objects that weren't associated with the ODM gear they had seen.

"Who's in charge here?" One of the men asked the people present.

None of them responded to the question.

"Do any of you know how to speak?" He asked them. "Who's in charge here?"

"What do you want?" A woman responded, standing behind a compost bin.

"We're here for Shinji Ikari and Evangelion Unit-01," he revealed, holding up a picture of the boy and the Eva.

"Why? They haven't done anything wrong," said a little boy to them.

-x-

The trenches for the agricultural livelihood of the people were now straightened out and being set to grow different fruits and vegetables for the city.

Eren, in his human form, rested up for the remainder of the day while the two Titans, Sonny and Bean, were restrained and left alone to keep them everyone out of harm's way; just because Eren could control these two didn't mean that this control was currently absolute, and every precaution was necessary to ensure safety.

"Yeager!" He heard a man shout at him. "We might have a problem!"

"What do you mean?" He responded.

"Fifteen minutes, a foreign group of men came into the city and demanded the location of Ikari and his purple giant." The man explained the situation to him. "They have strange weapons with them."

"Lead the way," Eren ordered him.

-x-

"…I don't know what the next place we'll find will be like," went Armin during a conversation during dinner. "I just hope it's the same with the island: Titan-free."

As the corps members ate, in the kitchen, Shinji and Kaede were engaged in their own conversation about the expansion plans.

"You think there aren't any more Titans out there, Shinji?" Kaede asked him.

"Well, if they weren't on the island, there's a chance they're elsewhere," he explained his concerns. "With the minor exception of the two Titans we left in the city, the Beast Titan incarcerated back in the Walls, and Mr. Yeager himself, there haven't been any other sightings of Titans. But even if my arrival had something to do with the reduction in their activities, there should still be some wandering around. Hiding in large places that can provide cover for them, places we can't go yet, someplace."

"If there's one thing Titans are known for besides their mindless savagery against people," Kaede told him, "it's their unpredictability. Even though they were made from using normal people long ago, they're not the same as normal people, so they don't do things normal people can do. They eat without needing to, kill without a conscience directing them, and they'll surprise you in ways you don't expect them to when the opportunity to do so presents itself."

"And yet, the only things I've ever seen them do since my arrival…were try to harm my Eva and flee when they realized they were being targeted as food for it."

Rumble! They heard the carrier go as it either slowly turned in the water or a small wave hit its haul.

"Old, but still reliable," Shinji expressed.

"Yeah." Kaede agreed with him.

Suddenly, the speakers started up with static…and then a voice with some noise in the background.

"If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I'd like to do…is to save every day till eternity passes away…just to spend them with you…" A man's voice went over the speakers.

"What is that?" Kaede asked Shinji.

"It's…a song," he revealed; someone must've tinkered with something somewhere on the carrier and found something to cause this song to be played and heard. "People would record their songs and give them to people to listen to over the years."

"…If I could make days last forever…" The song continued, and Kaede set her bowl down to stand up.

She started moving around on the floor, catching Shinji's eyes as she threw her arms in the air.

"…If words could make wishes come true… But there never seems to be enough time…"

Shinji finished his soup and got up.

As the song played on a loop, the others that heard it all nodded their heads in agreement over it being a good song.

"There never seems to be enough time," said Levi, wondering who or what caused this song to play.

-x-

Standing in front of the foreign men, Eren and Mikasa, wondering why these men were here for Shinji and his purple giant, had the civilians leave to their homes.

"State your business," went Mikasa to them.

"We're here to take back the Third Child and Evangelion Unit-01," the lead man uttered.

"You're from the world he's from?" Eren questioned.

"That's right," another man answered, having a jagged scar under his left eye.

"Well, he's not here," Eren told them. "He's currently across the ocean with a number of our group to expand mankind across the land."

"And the Eva?"

"The purple giant? They took it with them. In the face of Titans, it's their only protection."

"And you have no idea when they'll be back, do you?"

"They left over two weeks ago. It could be another two weeks before they return…or a month. Why do you want them back so much. Didn't he inform you that he declined on the opportunity to return?"

With that being said, it was common knowledge that Shinji had relayed to the Survey Corps that he had received contact from this organization called NERV from the other world, and they had made an attempt to retrieve him and the Eva, but he had turned them down for both literal and personal reasons. There was also the fear of what this NERV organization could do if they obtained any Titans for their own use, and not just an Eva that had gained a tremendous boost in power by eating Titans.

"We have our orders to bring the boy and the Eva back with us by any means necessary," a third man told them, slowly raising up one of his firearms.

"And that includes force?" Mikasa asked them, slowly raising up her blades.

"If he returns, give him this message," the lead man told the two. "His father wants them both back, and he won't be refused. Let's go, men."

They walked away, leaving the city and the people alone.

"I don't think they're willing to leave us unharmed," said Mikasa to Eren.

"If they're here for Shinji and the purple giant, then they're probably here for some of the Titans, as well," he agreed with her. "And it sounded like the both of them were viewed as property, possessions."

"It sounds like this NERV organization is a power-hungry bunch, and the purple giant is power incarnated, something they want by any means."

"And the organization is run by his father, who sounds as bad as Shinji makes him out to be."

The two agreed that when Shinji and the others returned, the operator of the purple giant would have to be informed of these men being here for him an his giant.

-x-

"…And these…diving suits were made to help people travel underwater?" Armin asked Shinji, who explained a question he was asked about the possibility of underwater travel.

"Yeah, Armin," he answered him. "The primary function of a diving suit is fight off hypothermia, ensuring the body's temperature is unaffected by the coldness of the ocean. In addition to that, we use oxygen tanks to give us access to breathable air while in an environment where air is nonexistent."

There was a reason to their conversation: Due to the unpredictability of the Titans, Shinji, who, like several of the others aboard the carrier, suspected that, while needing to require sunlight to stay active most of the time, the Titans could probably wander on the ground underwater, not needing to worry about breathing.

"…But we've never encountered a Titan in the water before," said one of the female members.

"That doesn't change the possibility that Titans could be underwater," said Kaede to her.

"But without sunlight, they wouldn't be as active as they are during the day."

"Wait, does it have to be sunlight only?" Shinji asked them.

"As far as we know, they always thrived on sunlight," said Armin to him. "What do you think?"

"What if Titans could draw power from an energy source that wasn't the sun, but was equally sufficient for them to be active? What if…they could derive power from the heat energy stored in the ground?"

"Could such a thing be possible?" Levi asked.

"Geothermal energy is considered a renewable source because it can't be wasted," Shinji told them, and then realized he had to explain what that was. "The sun heats up the ground, and the ground is able to absorb the heat and transfer it deeper into the planet, adding to the planet's internal heat core, which can be distributed out into the water through thermal vents, which are like volcanoes, only underwater, which heat up water to various degrees, resulting in places where there is heated water. Geysers, hot springs, even tar pits."

"It's better to take precautions than to believe there's no threat," said Kaede in acceptance.

"We're gonna need to find some suitable diving suits, then." Levi told them.

Some of the corps members groaned in acceptance over this decision, knowing it would be a risk because the Eva wasn't suited for underwater activity…and that Shinji couldn't swim worth a damn, having never took lessons.

"If it makes it any easier," went Kaede, defending Shinji's lack of abilities, "I can swim."

To be continued…

A/N: It's only a matter of time before NERV sends an Evangelion to retrieve Unit-01 and Shinji against their will and make an attempt to capture Titans. What do you think of Titans being underwater, though? Do you think it's possible? Read and review. Peace.


	10. The Red Demon

Creation began on 08-20-15

Creation ended on 02-26-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: The Red Demon

A/N: From the title, you know what is in store.

The tarps they found were sufficient in covering Unit-01 from the rain that fell from the sky onto the carrier. As they made the trip back to the city to see how much had happened in the time that they were gone, the weather's change caught the Survey Corps by surprise.

"The rain clouds may block the sunlight," went Levi, "but if Titans can draw geothermal energy and survive underwater, it's only a minor comfort."

Shinji, who was helping to secure the tarps to Unit-01's head, knew that there would be a shadow of fear and doubt for them if there were Titans in the water and were able to derive energy from alternate heat sources, even if it was only a precaution.

-x-

"…And none of them seemed to know where the Third Child or Unit-01 left to, other than overseas for some expansion operation," one of the men tasked with trying to retrieve the purple Evangelion uttered over a radio transmission to NERV HQ.

"There's a possibility that they won't surrender them," another of the men declared over the transmission. "And if they have these creatures that look like giant people, they may not surrender them, either."

-x-

With the transmission terminated for the time being, Gendo concluded that there would be a need for an Eva under NERV control to venture to this foreign world and retrieve Unit-01.

"Well, Ikari?" Fuyutsuki asked him.

"We will send Unit-02 to this place to retrieve Unit-01," he answered.

-x-

"…At least my plugsuit should serve as an efficient diving suit until we can find some actual ones," said Shinji to Kaede, who was wearing the boy's plugsuit.

In addition, the Survey Corps had found some items that Shinji revealed was nothing more than scuba gear. Oxygen tanks, masks, buoyancy equipment, everything that could allow a person to travel underwater for a short period.

"We found these, but we've yet to find anything like your plugsuit, Shinji," said Armin. "Not even anything that resembles what you explained about earlier. A…submarine?"

As he helped Kaede put on the scuba tank, Shinji responded, "Yeah, Armin. Though, I don't expect a submarine to do much good unless it's armed with torpedoes if there are Titans underwater. This is strictly reconnaissance."

Getting ready to dive, Kaede made sure she remembered the return instructions if she saw any Titans underwater. The rope that was tied around her waist was the longest one they could find, so she could swim away from the ship for a while, but if she were to see any Titans, she was to pull the rest of the rope three times, and the others would pull her up as fast as they could.

"Are you ready, Kaede?" Shinji asked her.

Putting on her mask, she nodded that she was.

"Be careful down there. Don't forget to tug the rope twice if you feel the cold affecting you."

Then, following the way Shinji showed her, Kaede fell backwards into the water.

-x-

"…So we're sending you over to try and convince Shinji to return," Misato informed Asuka as she walked down the hall with her. "Your orders are simply to try and convince him to return with Unit-01. Do not engage him or these giants unless it's to defend yourself. Unit-01's been supplied with a longer battery life just by eating these things."

"And should he continue to refuse?" Asuka asked her.

"Try not to worry about that right now."

 _I guess she doesn't know, either._

-x-

"How long do these oxygen tanks last down there?" Levi asked Shinji as they monitored the rope that acted as Kaede's lifeline.

"Up to an hour," Shinji answered him, "depending on how you breathe when you're underwater and how you cope with the depth and pressure down there."

Soon enough, the clouds, which had stopped raining, parted…and the sunlight shone aboard the ship and exposing the Survey Corps to warm light.

"So far, it's been over half an hour," said Armin, helping to hold the rope as it led into the water, meaning the girl was either swimming deeper or farther away from the ship. "I hope she's doing alright down there."

Tug! Armin and the others holding the rope felt a tug, which they weren't sure meant what.

"If she pulled the rope, she only pulled once," one of the others said.

Tug! Another pull of the rope was felt…and then another tug.

"Oh, no," Shinji gasped quietly. "That's three tugs."

"Quickly, pull her out," Levi ordered, and they pulled the rope back.

It took nearly seven minutes, but they managed to get Kaede out of the water.

Gasp! Kaede removed the breathing mask and breathed in new air as she was on her back; it was necessary for her to decompress, otherwise her lungs would've inflated and popped.

"Kaede, are you alright?" Shinji asked her.

She nodded that she would be okay, but then uttered, "Thank God, you pulled the rope when you did. I think you were right, Shinji. I kept expecting sharks to sneak up on me and attack me, or a giant octopus or whales or dolphins that you described. I thought I was swimming up to an underwater thermal vent or whatever it was you were talking about…but then I saw what it really was I was swimming towards. What came out of it."

"It was a Titan?" Levi asked her.

"Yes," she answered him. "It looked just like the rocks down there."

"Was it just one down there?" One of the female members asked her.

"I must've saw at least ten of them before you pulled me away," she revealed back. "I don't know how big they were, but the one that tried to grab me had to be about as big as a Colossal Titan."

"From the size of its head?" Armin asked her.

"No, from the size of its hand," she told him.

Shinji looked at the water, wishing that it had all been just a lie, that they were making progress because of the reduction in Titan activity. But he knew he couldn't delude himself into thinking that way. It was another truth, and it haunted him. The truth…being that there were Titans underwater…deriving their energy needs from alternate heat sources.

-x-

The plane ride to the Nevada was dull, but you couldn't rush things like travel. This was something Asuka didn't enjoy, since she wasn't a fan of long travels. She could've blamed Shinji for this, too, but that wouldn't have calmed her. No, she would just resolve this irritability by beating him into a pulp for his unwillingness to return with the Eva or any of these giants that could boost its operational limits. And she wanted to more power for her Eva; Shinji couldn't just hog all of this power for himself and not share it with NERV.

"I trust you're looking forward to seeing him after all this time, Asuka?" Kaji asked her.

"As if," she retorted.

-x-

The sight of the massive ship and Unit-01 returning to the city was quite a sight for the people and the other Survey Corps members. But their return was also because of a different reason that needed to be shared.

"You're back!" Eren greeted Armin. "Were you able to find any other places out there with people or Titans?"

"We found an island, but there wasn't any people around," Armin revealed, "but we discovered something new out at sea. Thanks to Shinji and Kaede, we found Titans underwater."

"Underwater? But it's an ocean, and it's… That's impossible." Mikasa expressed.

"Ever since we met Shinji, we've been able to get out of the Walls and live beyond it, and before then, even I was starting it would be impossible because it would take so long. Now, we're out of the Walls. If there's one thing that's not impossible, it's what the Titans are capable of." Eren confessed, also revealing that he was grateful to Shinji and his Evangelion for helping them all know the feeling of life outside the Walls.

As the rest of the members got off the carrier, Shinji was informed by Eren and Mikasa that some people showed up asking about him and Unit-01, and they looked like they weren't from around here if they knew who to ask for and appear intimidating.

"…They said they were here under orders from your father to bring you back to your world," Mikasa told him.

"I feared as much," he responded. "When we were exploring an island, I received a contact from someone I knew back home. Asuka Langley Soryu, and the worst part of speaking to her was that it seemed that NERV wanted more than just the Eva. They wanted whatever Titans they could get their hands on."

"What?" Armin gasped. "But that's insane! It's probably only a minor necessity that we're able to get any farming done with the two we have right now, but who would actually…want Titans?"

"I told her that I couldn't let that happen. As dangerous as they are here, I can't risk them being unleashed over there. So long as they're here, I'll use Unit-01 to consume them if there's no way to restore to normal."

"We only discovered one way to restore Titans to human form, but that's a difficult method to use against them," Eren told Shinji.

"What was the method?" He asked him.

"Part of the discovery in creating Titans involves the spinal fluid of a person that can turn into a Titan at will, but that involves the Titan eating the one that can do so."

"Basically, that's cannibalism. Huh? Wait a minute, are you sure about that? The cannibalism part? If it's just the spinal fluid they need to return to human form, then there should be methods that don't require anyone that can turn into a Titan being eaten by Titans."

"You mean, like…removing a part of the spine?" Mikasa asked.

"No, no. There's…what did they call it? Oh! Spinal fluid extraction! If it's just the spinal fluid that's required, then that can be extracted without killing anyone."

"What you're saying is that we could extract Eren's spinal fluid…and use it against the Titans, turning them back into humans?" Armin asked.

"Yes. Or even that guy we still have prisoner back in the Walls. He can turn into a Titan, too. We can even use his spinal fluid."

As they conversed, Kaede went looking for her mother and stepfather, who were probably worried sick about her.

-x-

"…They have a aircraft carrier that they're using to transport the Eva across the sea," one of the men sent to retrieve the Third Child and Unit-01 informed his superiors back home, using binoculars to observe the large ship the Eva was on. "Permission to use lethal force if they refuse to cooperate."

-x-

The fact that this city had many buildings still intact after many years (or centuries) of disuse or no maintenance didn't change the fact that it had at least several buildings that housed many books. Libraries that contained old books that possessed some knowledge that Shinji's knowledge supported much of. But so far, none of the people that practiced medicine had yet to find anything in the books that detailed medical studies that related to spinal fluid extraction.

 _If only they had access to the Internet,_ thought Shinji as he walked down the streets and found several, rust-covered vehicles with flat tires. _Give them a few driving lessons, they won't need horses, anymore. Show them how to express creativity, and they can create their own graphic novels. Teach them about sports, they support the teams. Introduce them to dance moves that demonstrate self-expression…and they're able to have more fun than they've ever had behind the Walls than outside them._

He entered a building that had once been a clothing discount store, and found some clothes that were still in near-good use. He decided to help himself to a blue coat that only had a tattered bottom. It felt good and only needed to be broken in; he didn't have any clothes beside the hand-me-downs from within the Walls and his plugsuit. Maybe now was the excuse to salvage a semblance of his previous lifestyle.

Thud! He heard something loud, but it wasn't anywhere in the store.

"Aaahh!" He heard people screaming, and ran outside to see what was wrong.

"Oh, no," he expressed, horrified at the sight in front of him.

-x-

Equipped with an untested reactor derived from the N² technology used against the Angels, Unit-02 could now operate for longer than five minutes if there was resistance against its mission priorities.

Asuka saw the people running from her Eva, and she liked that she was being feared from her presence after justing arriving.

"Attention, people," she spoke over the the Eva's loudspeakers. "I'm only going to say this once. Surrender Unit-01 and hand over the Titans…or the repercussions will be severe."

The people merely ran towards the hills; this thing, this…red demon…was beyond them.

But one man ran away from the people, towards the water where the carrier was. He hoped to get to the Eva faster than Unit-02 could.

-x-

"Shinji was right about them," Armin said, hanging from the side of a building with many of the other ODM gear-using soldiers. "He even said this Asuka girl was crazy in her Eva."

"Hard to believe that there's someone else with one and isn't here to help us," added Mikasa.

"We have to hold her off until Shinji shows up," said Eren, and propelled towards the red Eva, biting into his left thumb, triggering his Titan transformation.

An explosion and a flash came, and the red Eva was jumped on the chest by a Titan of fifteen meters in height with a jagged mouth and green eyes.

"Gahh!" Asuka gasped.

The Rogue Titan grabbed onto one of the plates of Unit-02 and slammed its right fist into it, leaving a dent in it.

Asuka barely felt the Titan's assault on her.

"Rrrrrrrraaaurgh!" The Rogue Titan shrieked, leaving additional dents into the Eva's armor; even the face of a non-Titan enemy, Eren refused to back down.

Asuka had Unit-02 grab the Titan and hold it in her grip.

"Well, this is one Titan," she sighed.

"Asuka, stop!" She turned and saw Unit-01 approaching her. "Put down that Titan and back away from the city!"

"Sorry, Third! I got orders to bring you, the Eva and several Titans back to NERV!"

"You have no idea how dangerous the Titans would be if NERV got possession of them and exploited their secrets!"

"The Evas would be more powerful and not as reliant on external energy sources! We could fight the Angels without restrictions!"

"And you'd have a doomsday weapon to use when things don't go your way! But you don't understand how dangerous they are and why they need to remain here where they can be contained and handled. Now, put that Titan down."

Asuka never got the chance to even consider, as the Rogue Titan suddenly evaporated in her hand…and something shot out of it.

Eren, once he saw Shinji and Unit-01 arrive, emerged from his Titan body and escaped; he had done what he had intended to do.

"Well, that's a Titan you won't be using for anything," Shinji told her.

"Shiest! Very well, then, I'll just apprehend you!"

Unit-02 then charged towards Unit-01, but the purple Eva retaliated and they smashed into each other…with Unit-01 being the stronger of the two, forcing the red behemoth backwards with more force than expected.

"Aaaaurgh!" Asuka grunted; she didn't expect the purple Eva to be this powerful after eating several of those giants the Third Child was using it to save these people from. "You idiot!"

When Shinji had pushed her Eva a good distance outside the city limits, he kicked her in the waist and knocked to the ground.

"Asuka, you can walk away from this!" He told her. "I don't want to endanger the people that live here!"

"It's not our world, Third! Their lives mean nothing to me!"

Shinji sighed…and had Unit-01 punch Unit-02 in the face.

Asuka countered with a kick to the back, throwing Unit-01 off her Eva, sending it face first into the ground.

"You would willingly turn your back on us all for the easy way out?!" Asuka questioned him as they both got back up. "What are these people and their problems to us?! They shouldn't matter if they refuse to cooperate!"

"Cooperate? With NERV? That's not cooperating, Asuka, it's tyranny. That's being an asshole for selfish reasons."

"Their problems aren't ours, Third."

"So long as I'm here, they're as much my problems as they're theirs."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

And with that, Unit-02 withdrew its Prog. Knife and held it up in a defensive manner; while her orders were to retrieve the Eva, she wasn't instructed to bring it back with its arms or legs intact.

"Asuka," Shinji tried to be reasonable with the redhead, "don't make me take the people's hope from them. They need this Eva and me more than NERV right now."

"I got orders to bring the Eva back to NERV," she responded. "I intend to carry out that order."

"The Red Demon."

"What?"

"That's what you are right now. You're the Red Demon. Toji always referred to you as a demon…and maybe you are."

Unit-01 withdrew its own Prog. Knife and assumed a defensive stance.

To be continued…

A/N: There you have it. Shinji has declared Asuka to be a demon like his friends saw her as, but only because she threatens to take away the people's hope that he wants to preserve.


	11. Judgmental Eyes

Creation began on 02-26-16

Creation ended on 02-27-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Judgmental Eyes

A/N: Here's this year's new chapter.

"…So you were with that boy that uses that purple giant out at sea?" Kaede's mother asked her as she returned to the space they used in a building as their family's new dwelling. "Were you okay on your own?"

"Mother, I was fine," Kaede assured her. "I helped them a little on the carrier."

"Your grandfather would be proud of you," she praised her.

Suddenly, her face's positive expression turned sour.

"Uh, yeah," she responded, but it was completely without a hint of joy. "I'm just going to change out my clothes and then head back out."

She retreated to the room she claimed as her own and shut the door. She grabbed at her chest, clutching at her heart.

 _That man,_ she thought, full of spite right now towards her grandfather. _That awful, awful man! Why did she have to bring him up?! He hurt me inside the Walls!_

When she calmed down, she walked over to the small room that served as her closet and grabbed a clean pair of trousers and a tan dress. She undressed to her undergarments and redressed. Up until a few minutes ago, she was at ease, but when her mother brought up her grandfather, she felt her subtle happiness began to fade. Ever since before Wall Maria fell over five years ago, Kaede's relationship with her grandfather was permanently strained, possibly beyond reconciliation.

 _I just wanted to leave him where he belonged,_ she thought, brushing her hair. _And he belonged buried under all that rubble and ash._

But now, as much as she wanted to forget about him, she couldn't right now. He was etched into her mind, a permanent guest in her consciousness.

"Kaede!" She heard her stepfather yell, banging on her door. "Kaede, we gotta get out of the building!"

She opened the door and questioned, "What are you talking about?"

"The purple giant that's not a Titan! It's fighting a red giant that's not the Colossal Titan!" He informed her, and she ran over to her window where she hoped she could get a view of what he was talking about that was going on outside.

She saw the purple Eva engaged in a knife fight with a red giant that was of the exact size.

"Another one?" She questioned.

-x-

"…He's trying to keep this red Eva away from the city," Armin informed the civilians as they were running for the hills. "Keep calm, everyone!"

As the people were gathering on the hills, Unit-01 had managed to stab Unit-02 in the left leg.

"Aaaurgh!" Asuka yelled, and stabbed Unit-01 in the right side of its waist.

"Gaah!" Shinji gasped, and pulled his knife out and backs-lapped Unit-02 away from him. "Dammit, Asuka! I don't know how you even expect to get any Titans to NERV, but you wouldn't be able to do anything with them without risking the lives of thousands of people! They're giant man-eaters! Cannibals! And what's worse is that they don't even need to eat to survive! They do it because they don't have the necessary capacity to think about anything else!" Shinji yelled at her.

"And yet, they make your Eva stronger just by eating them!" Asuka retorted. "Such power would be more beneficial than this prototype reactor my Unit-02's using right now! You know that an Eva powered by what you're using as an energy source would increase our chances against the Angels, and you don't have the guts to admit it!"

"Because the Titans are a double-edged sword! I didn't find out until later that they were once people that had been turned into Titans by a guy that can turn into one! He turned countless people into mindless monsters! As much as it sickens me that this has happened, I did help apprehend him and now he's locked up where he can't hurt anyone! Now, I just want to help find a way to restore the Titans left back humanity! I couldn't ask any of NERV for that sort of help because all you want are the Titans! That's not helping the people at all! And look around you! Look at what I'm trying to help the people left do!"

Asuka did look, but all she saw was a world that was not worth fighting for.

"What do you see in these people? This place?" She asked him.

"I see a world that deserves to be saved more so than the other world does, Asuka. You have no idea what it was like for them before I showed up. To be on the brink of extinction. To literally be on the brink, and having to live cut off from the rest of the world by living in a cage to keep the predators out. And to have to run for cover every time the predators come looking for you, ignoring any other creature that happens to be there."

"And you think that, just because you show up and are asked to help these people you don't know by fighting and devouring these giants, you can return hope to the world?"

"I can try…because the only way I'm leaving this place…is as a corpse."

-x-

 _"The only way I'm leaving this place…is as a corpse,"_ Misato heard Shinji say to Asuka through the intercom system.

NERV was fortunate enough to be able to have gotten enough satellites and a stronger network to maintain communication with Unit-02, which would be able to share that connection with Unit-01.

Gendo was further displeased that such a potential resource as these giants that had provided Unit-01 with increased power was being blocked by the Third Child…and his morals.

"You have your orders, Second Child," he uttered to Unit-02. "Disable Unit-01."

-x-

As they gathered with the other civilians on the streets going towards the hills, Kaede took this opportunity to slip away from her mother and stepfather and go the opposite way, towards the danger that was the Evas fighting. Peeking behind a corner, she saw Unit-01 engaged in a brawl with the red Eva, which (from her perception) looked like it had four eyes, two eyes more than the purple Eva. As fierce as she heard Shinji was in Unit-01 when facing off against the Titans, he looked like he was having difficulties trying to face the red Eva that he explained was operated by a girl that was (as he himself put it) very violent and full of herself.

 _Oh, come on, Shinji,_ she thought, watching as the purple Eva threw the red one aside. _Is he trying not to kill her?_

Then she saw the red Eva use a knife and stab the purple one in its chest.

 _Shinji said that he could feel whatever pain the Eva experienced, as if it were actually happening to him. He also mentioned that he felt that his hand had been snapped in two and he was pierced in the head. Who would actually be crazy enough to make something like a Titan made of metal that forces a person to suffer as it suffers?_

Then, without a moment's notice, she saw the red Eva stab the purple in the waist, causing blood to spray out.

 _Damn it, Shinji._

-x-

"Urgh!" Shinji groaned, feeling like he was bleeding internally now because of Asuka.

"Whenever you're ready to give up, Third Child," he heard her say to him.

"Bite me, bitch," he told her, feeling the taste of his own blood in his mouth.

BOOM! The ocean water nearby exploded and caused a shower of salty water to fall upon everything.

Asuka looked over and saw several large humanoids. They were covered in a rock-like exterior and stood almost sixty meters tall. She could see at least eight of them, and several more were rising from out the water.

"Oh, no," she heard Shinji say. "They must've followed us back here."

"Coming from you, these must be just like what you had your Eva consume. It must be my lucky day."

"Asuka, you have no idea what these Titans are capable of. They're unpredictable!"

"I doubt you do yourself, idiot."

"At least the Titans are good at one thing: They don't share personal opinions because they don't think about opinions."

Unit-02 then kicked Unit-01 aside and went over towards the Titans; she was confident enough to be able to deal with these creatures.

"Asuka…don't…"

She stopped three feet in front of them…and soon wished she hadn't.

The Titans that had lived an unfathomable degree of time underwater and adapted to drawing heat energy from thermal vents, which were believed to be no different from the sixty-meter-tall Colossal Titan that Unit-01 had defeated earlier, weren't as slow as the smaller Titans were sometime. They suddenly went from being slow…to being hyperactive! They jumped Unit-02 to the ground and bit at its armored exterior.

"Aaaurgh! Get off me!" Asuka shouted, throwing one off her right arm and punching another off her chest. "Filthy scum!"

Unfortunately, her verbal didn't phase them, as they just came back and got on her Eva again. They weren't even as big as an Eva, and they had her outnumbered.

Shinji looked over at them, and, as much as he felt she probably deserved whatever these Titans had in store for her, knew he couldn't let her get killed by some mindless remnants of mankind…nor let her take advantage of them.

"Grr," he groaned as he tried to get back.

CLASH! He heard an explosion and saw something appear from beside one of the skyscrapers.

At first, he thought it was Eren turning back into his Rogue Titan form, but then he noticed many things that were different about this Titan that appeared. It appeared to be much larger than a fifteen-meter Titan…and even greater than a sixty-meter Titan; it had to be close to one-hundred meters, the same height as an Eva. It had an androgynous, muscular build, long, dark hair and even darker skin.

"Grrraurgh!" It shrieked, and the Titans on Unit-02 took notice…and felt compelled to go after it instead of the human inside the red Eva. "Grrrraurgh!"

-x-

"No way!" Armin gasped, and Eren thought he saw a ghost from over five years ago, only larger. "That's the biggest Titan ever!"

"It looks just like that Titan that appeared when Wall Maria fell," a woman expressed.

"The Dark Titan?" A man questioned. "That's the Dark Titan?! The Titan that fought and killed over eighty Titans before it disappeared?"

"It's as big as the two behemoths," went Mikasa.

But what caught Eren's attention about the Dark Titan right now was the way it showed up. It was just like when he turned into a Titan. And with the Colossal Titan, too. He was convinced that it was no different from him or the captured Beast Titan. The Dark Titan, if this was indeed the same one he saw years ago, was a human that had somehow gotten the power of the Titans, and thanks to his father's notes, he and the rest of the Survey Corps knew that how this Titan Shifter came to be. But the question now was who was the person behind the Dark Titan.

To be continued…


	12. Resentment and Depression

Creation began on 02-27-16

Creation ended on 03-18-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Resentment and Depression

The Dark Titan had gotten the attention of these Titans from underwater…and one tried to bite into its left arm.

"Grrraugh!" The Dark Titan roared, and punched the enemy in the gut as it threw it aside, against three other Titans.

Its injury, a series of bite marks that bled out a strange fluid that didn't look at all like blood, regenerated and made the arm look like new.

Within Unit-01, Shinji saw this Titan assault the other Titans and draw their attention away from Unit-02 and Asuka.

 _Is this Titan an ally?_ He wondered.

-x-

"The Dark Titan's attacking the other Titans," Eren gasped; it was just like before, over five years ago, as he and everyone else present saw it attacking only the Titans, ignoring human beings.

As the people on the hills watched as this Titan face off against the other Titans that may have craved human flesh for many lifetimes, the Survey Corps felt powerless against these Titans because they couldn't use their ODM gear because the mindless Titans weren't near any of the buildings.

Eren could've tried to use the Coordinate to control the Titans, but these were too far from him, and he wasn't sure if he could control them at all.

-x-

As Asuka got Unit-02 back up, she saw the Dark Titan being ganged up by these smaller Titans that seemed to view it as being more interesting. And this was something she couldn't stand.

"Even just one of these damned things will be enough for NERV," she sighed, and made an attempt to collect one.

"Dammit, Asuka!" She head heard Shinji, and saw Unit-01 get between her and the Titans facing the Dark Titans. "NERV will not get any Titans for their own purposes!"

"If I decapitate Unit-01, you will die from the high sync ratio," she threatened him.

"The same applies to you, Asuka, but I don't want to kill you. So don't make me have to do so. I don't want to kill you or anyone."

"Then you'll never win any war by letting your enemies live, idiot."

She was trying to taunt him into doing something reckless, to lose control. But Shinji was smarter than that. He had time to cope with his new surroundings and understand those around him. And more importantly, he had been able to confide in Kaede about his past problems and she had confided in him about her own past, which, now that he thought about it, seemed based around one thing that was difficult for her to talk about: Her family.

 _Whenever she brings it up, she mentions a feeling of betrayal,_ he thought, waiting for Asuka to try something against him that involved the Titans. _What did her family do to her?_

He then saw Unit-02 make a move towards him, which forced him to retaliate.

"Dammit, Asuka!" He shouted, and used his knife to block hers, and then lifted her up and threw her aside, into the ground near the water. "I'm trying my absolute hardest not to kill you, and you're making it difficult! Are the Titans really worth getting killed over?!"

As she got back up, Asuka looked at him and uttered, "I got orders to follow. NERV wants the Titans and a Titan-powered Unit-01, no matter what."

"This isn't worth dying over, and you know it."

"Gaaaaurgh!" They both turned and saw the Dark Titan, still ganged-up on by the other Titans around it, unable to move as they were trying to eat through its arms, legs and body. "Gaaurgh!"

"What the Hell?! They're cannibals?" Asuka gasped.

"No," Shinji realized. "They're trying to get at its spinal cord!"

This meant that this larger Titan wasn't just some mindless, former member of the human race. It was a person just like Eren, someone that could turn into a Titan and use their abilities. This person, whoever they were, was someone Shinji had to save, no matter who they were. But before Shinji could will Unit-01 to intervene, what he saw next was something beyond unusual.

One of the Titans biting into and munching on the flesh of the Dark Titan's right leg, looking as though it had eaten more than its fill of the behemoth, released the maimed limb and staggered away from the rest of them, grabbing onto its throat.

"Gaaah! Grrraurgh! Urgh!" It roared, and steam began expelling from its rock-like hide.

"Grrruargh!" Three other Titans, the ones eating through the waist and left arm, roared as they let go of the Dark Titan, as steam started expelling from their bodies.

"What in the name of…" Asuka reacted, seeing the Titans steam up and evaporate. "What the Hell is this, Third Child?! That thing killed them?!"

Shinji looked at her and responded, "It's a new one for me."

-x-

As the wind blew the steam away, the Survey Corps were able to get near the scene where the large Titans fell…and counted at least twelve people they didn't recognize because they looked like they were covered in rock-like husk.

"Ugh…hmm…" Levi heard several groan as they tried to move.

Shinji, still in Unit-01, looked at the remains of the Dark Titan's body…and found that they wouldn't be finding out who was in it. The degenerating remains had a large hole in the nape, right where someone would be if they were controlling the Titan body.

Asuka, who had seen this as the perfect opportunity to retreat, fled while Shinji was distracted.

-x-

Hiding in an alley, the Dark Titan's human source felt depressed.

 _I hate this power,_ they thought. _I hate that I have it, that he forced it on me, that I had to use it._

Deciding to return home when the rest of the people did, they could hide among them as though nothing had happened. For right now, they felt weakened, like they had run a mile or two, carrying a tremendous weight on their shoulders the whole time.

-x-

So far, the twelve people that used to be Titans felt like they had been buried underground for many years, able to wash the dried mud and rock off their bodies, were able to think more clearly.

"So…we've been underwater for a long time?" A man asked Levi, who was interrogating the former Titans. "How is that possible?"

"Titans don't need to breathe," Levi explained. "Is there anything you remember from before you were a Titan?"

"I was visiting my grandmother," a woman explained her last memory to Levi. "Everything after that is a blur."

"So, what you were doing earlier in the day is all you remember?" Levi asked again.

"Yeah, that's right," went another guy that was once a Titan, explaining that his last memory was running to see his girlfriend.

"Somehow, trying to devour the Dark Titan turned them back to normal," said Armin to Eren and Mikasa, as they were all confused by this phenomenon.

"But they were unable to kill the Dark Titan," went Eren; they had seen none of the former Titans go anywhere near the neck or spinal column of the Dark Titan. "And only a few of them only went for the arms or legs."

Mikasa wanted to say something, but decided to keep her thought on the Dark Titan to herself.

-x-

Shinji, under orders from Levi to dispose of the remains of the Dark Titan body that barely evaporated, found that the remains of this particular Titan had raised the Eva's power more than the Colossal Titans and the regular-sized Titans had. Although they were just remains, they increased the time left to over one-hundred-five hours.

 _Nuts,_ he thought, unsure of how this was possible, but took it for what it was worth. _Whoever was behind this Dark Titan, I owe them my eternal gratitude._

While this increased power would provide a greater edge against Asuka if she ever shows up again, the fact that the Eva was now stronger would make her and NERV want it even more. Worse was that there were bound to be more of the Titans underwater…and coming to where the people were, since Titans were drawn to the life force of large populations.

-x-

"Kaede! You're safe!" The girl's mother sighed as she returned home.

"What happened to you?" Her stepfather asked her. "We thought you were still in the city when the red behemoth showed up and attacked."

"Nothing happened," Kaede told them, and returned to her room.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" Her mother asked.

"I'm fine."

Closing the door, Kaede sighed and fell to her bed. She thought about Shinji and how he was doing right now. One of the things she liked about the building she lived in was that she got a good view of the water and the Eva that knelt in front of it, as if guarding the city from future threats from the Titans, and now the people were aware of another threat that wasn't a Titan, from this world Shinji was from, and that was something she found unusual. People that wanted him to come back, or at least the Eva he was using to protect them from the Titans…and the Titans themselves for their own purposes.

 _Why can't more people be like Shinji?_ She wondered.

-x-

"…The nerve of that jerk!" Asuka grunted as she did a diagnostics check of Unit-02 from within the plug. "Protecting people he doesn't even need to protect! Refusing to let NERV take possession of some of these…Titans as he calls them…and gets in the way constantly!"

When she was done with the diagnostics check, the Eva picked up something on its scanners. Something big was approaching from the west of the base camp. It wasn't as big as an Eva…but was within the twenty-meter height.

"Well, hello!" She expressed, activating the Eva and turning it to face the location of the incoming.

-x-

"…This is most unusual," went of the men from the Survey Corps on the ship, examining the liquid remains of the Dark Titan body that didn't evaporate. "I think we should've kept that thing instead of having Ikari dispose of it, Captain."

"Why is that?" Levi questioned him, also in the room they were using to examine the samples taken from the body.

"Based on the information we were able to find from the Yeager house and the remnants of knowledge and technology we have been able to salvage from outside the Walls thanks to Ikari, this fluid that bled out of the Dark Titan appears to be the same as what's needed to trigger a Titan transformation in a normal person. This substance is spinal fluid."

"Then, the Dark Titan is not only some sort of Titan Shifter, it's a walking sack of spinal fluid in its arms and legs?" Another man in the Survey Corps in the room asked.

"That's how it seems to be," the man examining the sample explained.

"We need to ascertain the identity of the Dark Titan," Levi declared; if they could find whoever this Titan Shifter was outside the Titan body, their chances of eliminating the Titan threat would increase to higher heights.

-x-

It was a Titan that came near their camp. A wondrous, fifteen-meter with arms and legs disproportionate to its body and head. It lacked proper teeth, but its face made it look like one of the boys that Asuka disliked. In her mind, this Titan resembled Toji Suzuhara in all the worst ways.

Asuka had used the Eva to grab the Titan and keep it in check whilst the men that were here prepping for her arrival got the restraints ready to cage the humanoid.

Soon enough, it was captured and in check. They even a makeshift mouth guard on it when it kept trying to bite one of the men that was closest to its mouth.

"That's one in our possession," one of the men expressed.

-x-

Shinji didn't sleep as peacefully as he wanted to while on the building beside the Eva. Every time he closed his eyes, he ended up opening them sometime later. With Asuka and some people from NERV here for Unit-01 and whatever Titans they could get their hands on, it was now a necessity for him to be near the Eva to protect the people should Asuka come back to the city.

"Not able to sleep, either?" He heard someone say to him, and turned to look behind him, away from the sight of the ocean water and at Eren Yeager.

"It's not easy," he told the young man; he wasn't sure how old Eren was.

"No, it's not. I don't think it ever is easy."

"People that don't sleep well usually develop problems that stem from lack of sleep."

"And what are your problems, Mr. Ikari?"

"Besides my past issues that I saw someone with a license to practice therapy, my father, Asuka, NERV and everything else back home. I'm trying to help the people here with Unit-01 and NERV wants me to come back with it and some Titans for their own use after discovering that they could be used to give power to an Eva. And then, there's my father and everything he's either done or not done."

"Coming from you, it sounds like your father is a real jerk."

"A man that has never said anything nice to you or has spent a day with you for over a decade isn't someone I'd call a father."

"Looks like we're in a similar boat, then." Eren told him.

"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Shinji asked him.

"Ever since we returned to the Shinganshina District with your aid…and overthrew the would-be king of mankind, I found out something my father did that I hate him for."

"He turned you into a Titan Shifter," Shinji expressed; Armin had explained to him what the man's father had done to him. "Armin told me while we were out at sea."

"That…and what he did before he did that," Eren told him.

"Before?"

"You heard about the Reiss family, right?"

"Yeah, they're the royal family that had the Coordinate ability that could control the Titans."

"My father, Grisha Yeager, shortly after Wall Maria fell, attacked the Reiss family in his Titan body."

Shinji found this hard to believe. He recently learned what he could about this world's history, including how much of it had been manipulated by those with the Coordinate, along with this ideology belonging to the First King that seemed tied to the royal family's bloodline. But it all seemed so cruel and so disillusioned with delusions of grandeur tainted with lies. To be bound by the beliefs of someone that could've done so much good for humanity by stopping the Titans, but instead chooses to condemn the surviving members of the human race with a semblance of peace.

"He attacked them…and killed nearly everyone in the Reiss Chapel where they were during the fall of Wall Maria. Only Rod Reiss got away. My father murdered another man's family in order to gain possession of the Coordinate…and then he turned me into a Titan in order to devour him and gain possession of the Coordinate."

"That's terrible," Shinji told him.

"For a long time, I thought he was just missing somewhere, not dead. Every now and then, I get these looks from people that now know the truth. The kind of looks that mean, _'That man's father killed an entire family'_. They likely fear that I'll do the same to their families."

Shinji then uttered, "That's likely their perception of guilt by association."

"Guilt by association?" Eren questioned.

"It's when someone you know does something wrong, and sometimes, you're subject to the fallout of their crimes or sins because you know them. It's informal and a way to put blame on someone that has done nothing wrong, even though someone else has. It's not entirely different from pressing charges on any number of criminals that don't know each other, but have committed similar acts of atrocity."

"And what of your personal opinion about my father?"

"I never met him, so I can't give an opinion about him."

"Not who he was, Shinji, what he did before he died."

Shinji sighed, thought about it for a moment, and then expressed to Eren, "You kill one person, you're nothing but a murderer. But to kill an entire family, even to take from them a power that they won't use to help mankind break from the reign of the Titans, you're a family annihilator, Eren, a murderer that targets only families. Your father could've just gone after the one that had the power you now have to control the Titans if they weren't going to use it or were under an influence that made it so that they couldn't, even if they wanted to. But instead, he chose to kill the entire family when he took possession of the power. His reason for wanting the power taken from the Reiss family was admirable, but his morals towards the Reiss family members that didn't have the power was wrong, Eren. Even if we end this and stop the Titans for good, your father's crimes will still be on you because of what he chose to do…just like how I'm probably viewed because of my relation to my father…and I want nothing more to do with him. I wash my hands of him and his own sins, whatever they might be. If it's possible for you, do the same thing…and wash your hands of him and his sins. Not everyone deserves to be guilty because of an association with someone that did something unforgivable."

Eren sighed and expressed his thanks for Shinji's opinion.

"Hey," Shinji stopped him as he walked away. "Not that it's any of my business, but…does Mikasa ever smile or show some sort of expression? It's…a little creepy."

"Not as much as she probably did over six years ago, Shinji," he responded. "Have you known anyone that lost their parents to murder?"

"No…but I knew a girl whose face hardly ever changed expression. I don't even know how she's doing back there."

"Girlfriend?"

"No, nothing like that. We just worked together and NERV. She was…is…close to my father. Closer than I never was. Anyway, it's nothing. No point in trying to believe in something that wasn't anything to begin with."

"You mean, there wasn't anyone back in your world that…was something more than a friend?"

Shinji thought about Ayanami, and decided there wasn't anything to talk about with her. He thought about Asuka, who wasn't anything like a friend than she was an adversary at the moment. And then, there was Misato, who was older and sometimes difficult to understand because of what happened to her as a result of Second Impact.

"It's hard to be close to anyone back there when everyone around you seems to have other interests that don't include trying to build, rebuild or maintain relationships that should be stable, but aren't even close to stable…and you face creatures that are named after God's messengers that want to destroy mankind and you don't know why."

"Like the Titans before we found out why they only attack humans."

"At least with the Titans, there's no agenda beyond their senseless eating of whoever they can get their hands on."

-x-

The next day, the Survey Corps were doing door-to-door visits of everyone that lived in the city they were cleaning and learning more about.

"What's going on?" Kaede asked a man on the street as she saw some talking to people.

"They're doing background checks on everyone," the man explained. "It seems to relate to the Dark Titan that showed up the day before."

"The Dark Titan?"

"Something about it caused twelve of the Titans from yesterday to turn back into normal people. Whoever they are, the Survey Corps really wants to find them."

With this being shared, Kaede returned to her daily chores outside of home.

-x-

Deciding to put the remains Shinji hadn't consumed with Unit-01 to use, Levi had the large scraps of the Dark Titan body thrown at the two Titans that were in custody from before the people left the Walls.

The Titans ate at the pieces like regular Titans did with humans…and suddenly grabbed at their throats as steam was emitted from their bodies.

The other Survey Corps members present watched as the two Titans fell to their knees and then their faces, their skin evaporating and someone emerging from their necks.

"Urgh! Aaaurgh!" A man groaned as he emerged from the remains of the seven-meter Titan that was once called Bean.

"Aaaaurgh! Gaaaugh!" Another man groaned as he emerged from the four-meter Titan that was once called Sonny.

"Incredible," gasped Armin as he saw the two former Titans returned to humanity.

-x-

Using a pair of binoculars, Shinji looked at an expanse of land away from the city and saw a space shuttle that had to belong to NERV…and next to it was Unit-02.

"Oh, no," he muttered to himself on the building roof as he saw the red Eva load something into the ship that he knew would dread the human race if it got loose.

BOOM! He turned to the ocean water and saw an echo of the day before.

"Here we go again," he uttered, glad that he got in his plugsuit when he got up.

-x-

Asuka noticed the Titans that rose from the water being of similar size to the ones from the day before, likely larger in numbers than in size, and decided against going after any of those Titans due to Shinji getting in the way. Also, she didn't want to risk damaging her Eva because of the Third Child refused to see NERV's reasoning for wanting the Titans.

 _A bigger Titan may be more desirable,_ she thought, just as Unit-01 appeared and began to engage one of them, _but the smaller they are, the easier they will be to manage._

And with that, Asuka took Unit-02 and walked away from the base camp and further down the expanse of land.

-x-

Levi's orders to Shinji regarding these Titans was quite simple. Since there were still some remnants of the Dark Titan from the previous day, he was try and force as much of the Dark Titan flesh that he was told was saturated with spinal fluid, the very substance that Titan Shifters had to turn Titans back into humans, into mouths of the Titans until they got enough of the spinal fluid into their taste buds to trigger a regression back to humanity.

Holding a handful of the remains in both hands, he had the Eva shove as much as he could into one Titan's mouth.

One of them grabbed the Eva's left leg and tried to bite into it, only to shatter its own teeth as a consequence; Shinji never thought he'd be glad to know that the Eva had over one-thousand plates of fortified armor to go with its AT-Field.

"Ouch," he expressed sarcastically, grabbing the fallen Titan and shoving a bit of the spinal fluid-laced remains into its mouth. "Eat this!"

When he jammed bits of the flesh into at least five of the Titans, they started choking and evaporating. Using that as a distraction, he forced the other Titans to fall backwards into the water.

-x-

Setting as many stacks of the Dark Titan body's remains as possible, the Survey Corps members had to make sure that Shinji had as much of the remains as possible to stop this new wave of Titans.

"How's it looking up there, Eren?" Armin shouted to Eren, who was watching the scene between the Titans and Unit-01 from atop a building rooftop.

"He's a juggernaut out there!" Eren declared, watching as Unit-01 led seven of the Titans away from the buildings and toward a beach.

Then, he saw Unit-01 make a dash towards their location, its hands empty of the remains.

"He's coming back for seconds!"

-x-

"Are you alright, Kaede?" Her mother asked her as they and everyone else were on the hills as the Evangelion ran from the Titans.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered, but in truth, the girl was anything but fine.

Every now and then, she would feel like she was being hunted by something that she wanted nothing to do with at all. It was like she was stripped bare and left out in the rain to freeze because of something she was accused of.

"Hey, it's running back over to the Titans!" She heard a man say, and she saw the Eva returning with something in its hands as it approached the Titans.

"It looks like it's trying to put something into their mouths," another woman had told those around her.

"That's the idea," said a female member of the Survey Corps keeping watch over the civilians. "The Dark Titan from yesterday didn't deteriorate as much as we thought it would like regular Titans, and it had something that could be used to turn the tide around."

-x-

"…Well, what do we have here?" Asuka wondered, finding a rather unusual sight in front of her. "A rural settlement?"

In front of Unit-02 was a medium-sized town or village, with lots of trees and small houses. Unlike the city in which Unit-01 was currently residing, this place seemed more out of place because it looked like it belonged in a fairy tale or primitive timeline.

"Maybe the people there know where to find more Titans."

To be continued…

A/N: Uh-oh! Does anyone think they know just what it was that Asuka found in the world of the Titans? If so, then please share.


	13. Heart of Darkness and Light

Creation began on 03-18-16

Creation ended on 07-26-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Heart of Darkness and Light

As the Titans he force-fed the salvaged remains of the Dark Titan were forced to back away, Shinji saw them fall as the remnants of spinal fluid laced in the flesh took effect and began turning them back into humans. So far, the strategy to contain the Titans to the beach was working, despite the number of them rising from the ocean being more than the first time.

 _If I can ration the remains until they stop, we'll be done before anything bad happens,_ he thought, hoping these Titans weren't as smart as any of the other Titans weren't; as powerful as they were to regular humans, even though with ODM gear, the giant humanoids demonstrated no higher intelligence other than walking around and grabbing at people to try and consume them, something which Shinji could describe as being dumb or retarded in many ways. _Thank God they're not actually people able to turn into Titans._

-x-

Asuka had the people of this place running as she approached in her Eva. The buildings and everything in this settlement were completely primitive, which made her wonder how they could've chosen to live here when there was a salvageable city not far from here.

"May I have your attention, please?" She called to the people that were outside, running towards a building that may have been a church. "I'm not here to harm anyone. I just need to know where to find more of these…Titans as they're called."

-x-

Shinji lost count at twenty Titans that he force-fed Dark Titan flesh with to return them to humanity. But so far, the Titans had ignored the people on the hills, despite the fact that Titans were supposed to be drawn to large masses of people. Shinji had suspected that this was likely due to the fact that he was using Titan flesh saturated with spinal fluid, which aroused the Titans to come near Unit-01 instead of the civilians. As he ran back to where the rest of the remains were gathered for another helping to use against the Titans, he guessed that he had taken out at least twenty-six of them.

-x-

The people of the city couldn't believe their eyes. Or their ears, for that matter. The discovery that the return of the Dark Titan had sparked further hope in their future to be rid of the Titans for good, that the giant that seemed uninterested in human flesh possessed flesh that could turn the Titans back into people once they consumed it.

"That boy must've taken out at least thirty of them this way now," a woman in the crowd expressed.

"He's truly a gift from the heavens," added a man.

But, as much as she wanted to speak her mind about the good Shinji was doing, Kaede felt pained by what he was doing…and not because of some misplaced sense of doubt or hatred. No, she was pained because of something else that troubled her…and it felt like someone grabbing at her heart and not letting go.

"Kaede?" Her mother asked her, noticing that she was grabbing at her chest. "Are you alright?"

But Kaede didn't answer her. She was too wrapped in her emotions and memories.

 _Why?_ She thought, not feeling that her right hand was piercing her left breast beneath her top. _Why?!_

-x-

He didn't see any more Titans emerging from the water, and the ones that did were evaporating as the Dark Titan remains took effect with the spinal fluid, forcing them to return to human form. As they fell and shrank, Shinji felt like another calm between this great storm of the Titans from underwater was upon the people now, and that they could enjoy the reprieve from the fear of death.

 _This has got to end, eventually,_ he thought.

-x-

They stood in fear of the red giant that was larger than the Colossal Titan and almost like the Armored Titan…and capable of speech. It wasn't a Titan, but they knew it seemed impossible to beat, even if they tried.

-x-

"…You," the man that was the Beast Titan uttered, looking at Bertolt Hoover, escorted by several guards wielding rifles. "I was told you had died."

Bertolt then responded, "That's what I thought. This may not sound easy for you to accept, but we should just cooperate with the people of the Walls."

"You're right, that isn't easy to accept. You do realize the penalty for treason is death."

"I told them all that I know," Bertolt revealed to them. "Who you are, the mission, the homeland, everything. They could've executed me when I told them I was the Colossal Titan, too, but they haven't. At least not yet."

"You could transform and break me out of here."

"No, I couldn't. Even if I could, I've seen that purple giant in action, what it's capable of, and believe it's the reason I'm the way I am now."

"What are you talking about?"

"My Titan powers are gone, Zeke."

"That's not possible. You were turned and you ate someone that could turn into a Titan in order to gain their power. Once you did that, the power becomes yours for life…or until you're devoured by another Titan in order to regain human form."

"Then I guess the purple giant took that power when it beat me, because I've been unable to turn into a Titan, no matter how many times I injure myself."

"Traitor to your own cause."

"It was never my cause to begin with. I only did what I was told. But I hated what I was doing, wanting only to go home."

"We get the Coordinate and eliminate the people of the Walls first! Then, we go home!"

"If you try to change, they will kill you on the spot…and I won't try to stop them."

-x-

"…Other than the minor burns around their eyes, disorientation and the minor malnutrition, they're all perfectly fine," a woman told Levi, referring to the people that used to be Titans that Shinji force-fed Dark Titan scraps.

As the Survey Corps helped the former Titans get their bearings, Shinji, able to enjoy the moment of peace, went looking for Kaede. He felt like he had to assure her that he was fine, but the fact that he was in a city he barely recognized and was occupied by people he didn't even know made finding a girl that he…liked very much very difficult.

"I wish I knew where she lived," he told himself, stopping by a street with a snake-like road leading up and down. "Come on, Shinji, think. Where would you want to meet her at?"

-x-

Kaede awoke, finding herself in her room, recalling only the vaguest bits of what had transpired earlier in the day.

"Ah," she groaned as she got up. "Of all the days, I had to think about him of all people."

She stood in front of her mirror and examined her chest, barely seeing any scars from a self-inflicted injury made earlier.

"What happened, Shinji?" She wondered, and grabbed her shawl to go outside; she had some freedom to go outside now that there were greater methods of dealing with the Titans, particularly the purple giant that Shinji used.

-x-

Asuka had made it very clear what she demanded of these people…and didn't expect them to oblige her so quickly. And all she had to was explain that she had nothing to do with their problems, but wanted the means to have the Titans at her disposal.

After she had returned with a trio of the men that came with her to reclaim Unit-01, the people of this dwelling gave them a case of what would give them all the Titans they could want.

" _Give these to a few people, and you'll have your own Titans,"_ a man told them.

Of course, Asuka informed NERV of the discovery, but she would still search for at least two more Titans before making a return trip.

Commander Ikari, however, still wanted Unit-01 returned, as well, as it was still a top priority; whether or not the Third Child was brought back in one piece was up to how the Second Child chose to handle the situation.

As she held up one of the small vials of the Titan Serum, Asuka was curious as to how these could turn ordinary people into Titans.

-x-

Flicker! Shinji looked up and saw a streetlight flickering to life; he suspected that the Survey Corps had found out how to generate electrical energy to restore power to much of the city.

"It feels like a dream to see a city light up," he sighed, and started hearing the murmurs of many people within the buildings that had lights on.

Looking further down the street, he saw more streetlights turn on. He walked under them down the road, hoping he would find Kaede soon.

-x-

Kaede covered her mouth in surprise! She hadn't expected the streetlights to turn on as she walked down the street.

 _Amazing,_ she thought, looking towards a hillside and then running towards it. _The lights are so bright, they turn half the night into daylight._

Something in her heart told her to come this way, seeing a roadway curving left and right down the hill instead of a straight line. Down at the bottom, she saw a person, but she somehow saw his face from a distance she would've needed binoculars to see, and recognized them for who they were.

"Shinji!" She called out to him.

-x-

"Shinji!" He heard his name being called out to him, and he looked up the snake-like roadway, seeing a person.

"Kaede?" He questioned, running up the hillside now.

Kaede ran down the hill, going the long way instead of staying on the sides where there were stairs located; she didn't know why, but just wanted to get to him at her own pace.

"Kaede!" Shinji called out to her, happy to see her as he ran up the curved road. "Kaede!"

They met up somewhere in the middle, embraced and collapsed on the road.

"I missed you," Kaede told him, crying over his right shoulder.

"I missed you, too," he responded, and then helped her up. "I tried to find you, but I didn't know where to look. I had no clue where you lived in this city."

"I wasn't sure how to find you, either," she expressed, wiping her tears away from her face. "I'm glad we found each other when we did."

-x-

"…So, in addition to at least one of these…Titans she managed to capture without much difficulty," went Ritsuko to Misato, "the Second Child located a community that she made hand over a case of vials that are said to be able to turn people into Titans."

"That sounds crazy," Misato expressed her opinion to her as they walked down the hall back to Central Dogma. "Who'd want anything that can turn people into Titans? From what was seen when we looked at Unit-01's internal cameras and recorded footage, the Titans that attacked Shinji or were devoured by him seemed rather…like mindless animals."

-x-

"…My mother said that there were some friends of hers that called you a harbinger of hope," Kaede told Shinji as they walked down the street. "To be honest, I think they're right. You brought the people hope when you fell from the sky."

"Thank you, Kaede," Shinji told her, and soon realized that they had stopped by a beach.

"What is this place?" She asked him, seeing the waves rush up against the sand.

"It's called a beach," he answered.

"Are there more like this one around the world?"

"Yeah. Some bigger or smaller than this one."

Kaede stopped by the edge of the wet sand and watched the next wave reach up to her ankles.

"It's my first time at a beach, Shinji," she told him.

"It's my first time at a beach with someone I like, Kaede," he told her.

"Do you…think there aren't any Titans around?"

"I just hope to see the Dark Titan again. But…to answer your question, I hope there aren't any Titans for at least a few days. Two or three days at the most."

"Why the Dark Titan?"

"Whoever they are… Whoever they truly are…they may be a harbinger of hope, too. I've heard from some of those that claimed to have seen it over five years ago in Wall Maria when the Colossal and Armored Titans attacked Shiganshina, it appeared and attacked the Titans that got inside. Eren Yeager says that the Dark Titan saved his mother's life from another Titan that was going to kill her before devouring her. They didn't even try to eat anyone, instead focusing on the Titans. I don't know if there is such a Titan capable of defeating over eighty of them, but that's what those that saw it claimed. It's true, Eren's mother still died from internal injuries caused by the Titan that tried to kill her, but he still seems to have some admiration of the Dark Titan, and there's something about it, about them, that allows it to turn Titans back into people again. Whoever they are, they have a power that can help rather than harm. Somehow, there's something about them that can…undo the Titans, turn the clock back for those that were turned. They're a hero in a way, and they may not know it. And…if I should meet them…I'd just want to thank them for what they did for everyone."

Kaede felt like there was some measure of suspicion directed towards the person behind the Dark Titan and expressed, "I'm sure they know you'd want to thank them, Shinji."

-x-

So far, Asuka hadn't found any other Titans within the last two hours (this long feat in the search was achieved through the Eva's improved N² reactor). It irritated her that the only Titan she had managed to capture looked like the Suzuhara jerk. One Titan was not enough…and she believed she knew where to find more.

 _That Third Child won't know what hit him,_ she thought, making a return trip to the city Unit-01 was now protecting.

-x-

The sunrise was pleasant for Shinji, but not as much as who he woke up beside on the beach.

"Hmm?" He went, seeing Kaede on his right side, holding his arm and asleep on his shoulder.

Kaede awoke and realized she had been using Shinji's arm as a pillow, and quickly let go of him.

"I'm sorry about that," she apologized.

"It's okay, really."

They got up and walked away from the beach. The morning had only just begun and they needed to eat.

"Hey, Shinji," Kaede spoke up as they walked up a hill that led to the street she lived on with her parents. "You like me, right?"

"Huh?" Shinji responded. "Yeah. Of course, I do like you."

"And…if I were to tell you something that's…very difficult for me to talk about myself…would you still like me?"

This caught Shinji off guard. He knew everyone had every entitlement to keep whatever secrets that they were uncomfortable with sharing about themselves, but Shinji had just assumed that whatever she was talking about that she wasn't talking about had something to do with her parents. Sometimes, he felt it wasn't easy for anyone around his age to speak of their relatives because of something that was just too difficult to share.

"Whatever it is you want to tell me, I promise to accept you, all the same," he assured her.

"After breakfast, then. You should meet my parents, too. They're…probably wondering where I've been for hours."

Shinji then remembered something about how Kaede seemed very defensive about talking about her family. It always seemed like there was something off that she didn't want to reveal to anyone.

 _Whatever it is, it seems to bother her immensely,_ he thought, wondering what happened to her that made her so hesitant to share more of her past with him or others.

-x-

"…When we flew over, we saw this location," one of the men told Asuka, showing her a makeshift map of a location several miles away from both the mysterious town and the city the Third Child was using Unit-01 to protect. "If we can find some of these Titans there, we can take them."

"Okay, then," Asuka agreed with him. "Let's go to this place."

-x-

"Hello, Mother, Father," Kaede greeted her parents, introducing them to Shinji. "This is Shinji Ikari. He's the young man I told you I met back in Shiganshina."

Shinji looked at Kaede's mother, seeing that she looked, somewhat, like an older, sterner Kaede, but lacking her hair color and the feeling of repression. Then at her stepfather, who seemed like a nice man, despite Kaede saying that they were never close. He then bowed his head to them.

"Sir, ma'am," he greeted.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Mr. Ikari," her mother responded. "Kaede here has been thinking about you ever since she met you within the Walls."

"Welcome," her stepfather added in. "She's just kidding about that last part."

"Heh… I was with Kaede, along with others of the Survey Corps, on a Naval carrier for several weeks. There wasn't much to do but talk as we made our ways towards an island that had no Titans on it." Shinji explained.

"She also explained that she helped you find out there were Titans living underwater," her mother expressed. "She was the first to see them?"

"Yes, that is true. In fact, it's only because of her assistance that we were able to be forewarned of the Titans underwater."

"Yet, you have no idea just how many of these Titans are left down in the ocean, do you?"

"Unfortunately, no, but we're not likely to see any for a short while."

"Not since that Dark Titan appeared after five years of absence," Kaede's stepfather expressed. "It's strange that it returns so soon after you appeared with your purple giant. I do hope to see it again, though. They did what you do, which is give hope back to the world."

Shinji momentarily flinched when he felt Kaede's left hand grip his wrist.

"Um, would it be alright if Shinji joined us for breakfast?" She asked her parents, and released Shinji's wrist. "We were both out on the beach last night and we haven't eaten anything."

"Yes, of course," her mother answered. 'Please, join us, Mr. Ikari."

Shinji rubbed his wrist mildly and responded, "Thank you very much. And it's okay to call me Shinji."

Kaede looked down at her hand and sighed in dislike of what she did to Shinji just then. She didn't mean to hurt him; she just didn't like much of the talk about the Dark Titan. It was like wishing for something that seemed like too much of a bad thing to be considered good.

-x-

"Not bad," Asuka expressed, looking at the large wall that stood between her and the Titans that had to be inside the lands behind it. "A pity, though."

Within her Unit-02, she made the Eva raise its arms…and bring them back down on the wall, causing extensive damage to its structure.

Unfortunately, what she didn't anticipate from destroying a portion of the wall…was what was under it. A massive being that looked like a skinned human, which then fell to the ground beside her, bathed in the sunlight.

 _That must be a Titan!_ She suspected, and believed the rest of the wall was concealing more of them. _I think I just hit the jackpot!_

To be continued…

A/N: Oh, no! Asuka has discovered the Wall Titans. What could happen next?


	14. You still matter

Creation began on 07-26-16

Creation ended on 05-11-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: You still matter

Breakfast had been rather quiet in Kaede's home. It wasn't that her family didn't have anything to talk about, but rather, they just liked the silence. From Shinji's perception, it was something that they and everyone likely had to live with on account of the Titans. But it would likely change once all the Titans were gone.

"…So, Shinji," went Kaede's mother, setting her spoon down, "is there any chance of learning something new about the world outside the Walls from you?"

"Um… I'm not sure what is left for me to say that I know of," he responded to her. "I've looked at some pictures from several books that were found, and I hope that there is a frozen tundra out there waiting for people to rediscover."

"Uh, what's a frozen tundra?" Her stepfather asked him.

"It's a wasteland of snow and ice. No trees, no dirt, no weeds. There are certain animals, like a creature called a polar bear, that live in tundras."

"That's…quite a place to venture out to."

"Yes, it is. It is also a place where, despite the rising sun, night is said to last for more than one day. About a month, at least."

"Thirty days of night?" Her mother questioned. "Is such a thing truly possible?"

"I couldn't answer for certain," Shinji reminded them. "The world I come from is different from this one, ravaged by a calamity that reduced the place I lived in into one of constant summertime. I never saw snow until after I showed up here, within the Walls."

-x-

Asuka was beyond the point of biting off more than she could chew now. By destroying a large section of Wall Maria, she had unleashed a horde of Titans that existed inside them, which had returned to life by means of the sunlight after so long.

"Grrraurgh!" They roared, approaching the red Eva.

She counted at least fifteen of them so far, but she could no longer deny the possibility that each section of this wall she damaged was loaded with these Titans. Even if they were larger than the one she had captured, there was no guarantee that these giants weren't stronger than the other ones that emerged from the ocean and attacked her and the Third Child.

 _I gotta retreat,_ she realized, needing to escape and plan a course of action.

One of the Titans suddenly changed their appearance, turning from a skinned humanoid to a humanoid with a rock or crystal-like exterior. Other Titans followed suit, becoming encased in a similar exterior.

-x-

Up on the rooftop of her building, Shinji and Kaede looked out at the neighboring buildings and people below them as they continued to discover more about the city and reclaim their world.

"Even if we take back the world, it will still be a long time before we're off the endangered species list, won't it, Shinji?" Kaede asked him.

"Yes," he answered from his own beliefs, "but if we put much effort into reclaiming and repopulating, we could probably go from being a less than a few million to at least thirty-million. Give or take a few years to a decade or more, perhaps."

"Is the world really that massive to support that many people?"

"Yes…and no. Most of the planet's covered in water, but if there are few people, there shouldn't be much of a problem concerning most population requirements."

"Oh. Still…to know that it could take years to repopulate the entire world…and we've only left the Walls recently because of your help."

Shinji looked away from the world in front of him and focused on her.

"It's not something that everyone needs to get involved with for the sake of preserving the human race, though," he explained. "People that want to do something like that should do so because of personal reasons, not because of some need to carry on what may not be around for a long time."

"Is that so?" Kaede asked him.

"Yeah. I mean, some people can't even have children of their own. Even if they could, it should be a choice for them to make when they're old enough to handle the responsibility of having a family of their own. Of…of course, I'm not one to talk about such things. I'm no example."

"Still, you're the only person that has such knowledge that helps the people to reclaim the lost knowledge that was taken from us long ago. Even when I was still inside the Walls, one of the things that made me curious was why people wanted to have families of their own if we couldn't venture into the world out there without becoming victims to the Titans."

"People's reasons are their reasons, Kaede. Maybe because they love others or even because they made a promise to someone that, no matter what, they would try to find happiness. People are allowed to find happiness, even if it's in a world outside or beyond their grasp."

"That's what I want for myself, eventually."

"What?"

"I want a happy future. You see, even when I'm free of a life stuck within the Walls…I don't really feel like I am…completely free. There's always something that holds me back, something that I can't help but feel will always weigh me down…until it suffocates me."

Shinji felt he could sympathize with whatever it was that Kaede meant; even after he was, more or less, not within the boundaries of his father or NERV, or had to deal with the Angels that threatened to bring about the end of the world, he still felt like he was a prisoner in some other fashion. Even when they were free in one sense, they weren't free in another sense.

"Kaede, you…you wanted to tell me something?" He asked her, reminding her that she was to tell him something she said was hard to tell about herself.

"Um, yeah, I did," she explained, looking down at her right arm. "It's something that I thought I could just forget about as I got older, but I guess some pieces of the past just won't stay buried, no matter how hard you try. You see, something…bad happened to me over five years ago. It was before Wall Maria was attacked by the Colossal Titan, but I can still recall it as though it were only yesterday."

Shinji calmly placed his right hand on her left shoulder and waited for her to share whatever it was she wanted to tell him.

"It's me, Shinji," she stated, confessing. "What you said about the person that can turn into the Dark Titan being a harbinger of hope like yourself with your Evangelion. You're looking at her."

"Kaede…what…what are you saying?" He asked her, confused.

"The Dark Titan, Shinji," she revealed. "You're looking at the person behind the Dark Titan. It's me."

-x-

"…I think this place is what Shinji said was called a zoo," said Armin to the seven Survey Corps members with him as they examined the large patch of land that looked as though it had been used to house several different animals.

And this was judging from the sight of various animal habitats that had been left is disrepair over the length of time that human beings had been confined to the Walls. But there were no animals to be seen, not even animal remains.

"Too many years have gone by for there to be any animals left around here," a female member expressed, kicking over an old, deflated ball that hadn't wasted away completely.

Thud. Something that wasn't as loud sounded, coming from afar. Thud.

"What was that?" A male member asked Armin.

Armin looked through a pair of binoculars and saw something that was a nightmare that refused to end so soon.

"Titans," he confirmed, seeing a few that appeared to be similar to the Colossal Titan, but they appeared to have more muscle mass on their faces…and they appeared to be chasing a red giant that was running from them. "You gotta be kidding!"

"It's that red behemoth again!" Another female member expressed. "And the girl that moves in it brought them here! Is she crazy?!"

As much as Armin wanted to answer her question regarding Ms. Soryu's questionable sanity, he was beginning to doubt that any person like this redhead that Shinji had informed them about had any sanity in her, no matter what she did. And this included her insane orders to gather Titans.

"We gotta get Shinji," he told them as they ran to their horses.

-x-

 _She was serious,_ thought Shinji as he walked down the street to the harbor where Unit-01 resided near the carrier, trying to process what Kaede had revealed to him earlier. _But…it's insane in so many wrong ways. She's been a Titan Shifter for over five years, and it was against her will._

" _How come you never told anyone, not even your parents, that you're the Dark Titan, Kaede?"_ He had asked her after she revealed what was close to the proof that she needed to convince him that she was the Dark Titan.

" _The same reason everyone fears the Titans and would rather not talk about them,"_ she had answered. _"Fear. And because… I never wanted this. Even to this day, I still don't want this."_

Even if Kaede was like Eren in the aspect of being able to turn into a Titan and retain their intelligence, Shinji still had to take into consideration that this girl that had made it so that the Titans that did appear were returned to humanity was more a victim than she was a potential harbinger of hope. He couldn't just see the two as being the exact same; both individuals had different feelings and beliefs toward what had been done to them against their will.

 _And all she knows is that her grandfather said it had to be done to her,_ he thought, only able to think about the probable reasons someone in the girl's family would just go and… _No reason beyond that. It's nothing but a falsehood. It's nothing but an excuse…to do something cruel to someone else._

" _Shinji… I would appreciate it for the time being if you didn't tell anyone about this,"_ Kaede had requested from him, and he obliged her.

There was still a lot about Titan Shifters that Shinji didn't know about, but he decided to want a deeper and more thorough investigation into the notes left by Eren's father. He needed to know… No, he wanted to know how different the people that could turn into Titans were from regular people. He owed it to Kaede to know how much of her future would have been compromised by being a Titan Shifter.

"Shinji Ikari!" He heard a female Survey Corp member shout out to him, swinging through the air above the streets with her ODM gear. "There's been another Titan sighting!"

"Titans? But there's nothing coming out of the ocean!" He responded.

"They're not coming from the direction of the ocean. They're coming from the direction of the Walls."

"The Walls?"

"Apparently, the girl that controls the red giant that's like your purple one found a bunch of Titans similar to the Colossal, and is now trying to get away from them."

"Asuka went and… That stupid girl. She was bound to start something she couldn't even predict would get out of hand."

-x-

"…Kaede, be honest about this question," Kaede's mother went as said girl laid on her bed. "You really like Mr. Ikari, don't you? I mean, not because he fell from the sky, you know, but because you got to know him."

Kaede looked up at her and responded, "Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes, of course."

"So can I."

Her mother sighed and called her a secret keeper. But Kaede didn't care much; even her secret as a Titan Shifter was one she wished was nothing but a bad dream and a thing of the past. Even if Shinji believed her to be a harbinger of hope, she viewed this power as a curse, not a blessing.

" _To have to live with this ability everyday for the rest of your life is something I don't ever want to have to deal with, Shinji,"_ she had told Shinji prior to him leaving after their conversation. _I should've been nicer to him. I should've been nicer to him._

Suddenly, an alarm went off outside the building.

"Everyone to the shelters!" A male voice shouted out there. "Evacuate the buildings and head to the shelters, immediately!"

 _Titans? Again?_ Kaede thought.

-x-

Activating Unit-01, Shinji went around the city's populated streets and saw Unit-02 from a distance, being chased by large Titans that looked similar to the Colossal Titan, but without the exposed bone.

 _Dammit, Asuka,_ he thought, and charged towards them. _These people are trying to retake the world and you're trying to send them back to a life without hope! And for what? The Titans are a bane that will bring nothing but ruination if they continue to exist._

"Oh, Third, it's good to see you," he heard Asuka say to him over the intercom.

"Asuka, you have no idea what you've done," he told her coldly.

"I'm just following orders."

BASH! Unit-01 struck Unit-02 in the chest, sending it falling to the ground; Shinji would deal with Asuka after he had dealt with the Titans she brought with her that would endanger the civilians if they reached the city.

He spread his AT-Field and felt the Titans smash into the semi-transparent barrier, being reduced to pulp in the process. But that was only eight of them…with at least twelve more behind them as far as he could see. What he hated about this was that he didn't have any leftover remains of the Dark Titan to use on these Titans to return them to humanity, meaning that these were people that would die as Titans after an eternity of being mindless and having no future…and none of them had to suffer this way were it not for Asuka and the orders she had been given.

 _Damn you, Asuka,_ he thought, charging towards the remaining Titans that the redhead brought with her. _You never let up. You're always flaunting your overinflated ego._

With no other recourse, the pilot of Unit-01 had to do the next best thing, which was to empower his Eva by consuming the Titans.

As Asuka willed Unit-02 to get back up, she saw Unit-01 ravenously consuming the remains of the Titans she fled from.

 _Baka's taking more power for his Eva,_ she thought.

In less than eight minutes, the remains were all but disposed of and Unit-01's mouth was covered in evaporating blood and flesh, looking at Unit-02.

"You won't stop at all, will you?" She heard him ask. "You just won't stop. You want Titans so badly that you'll unleash Hell on the people here to get some."

"I'm just following orders," she defended.

"Following orders? That's bullshit, Asuka! Those Titans could've been restored to humanity. They could've been freed from what was done to them, to live like everyone else again. But you took that hope from them…just because you were following orders."

"What are you talking about? It's not like they're people that care, anymore."

"They were still people that cared about their lives, Asuka. They were people that could care again if they had been saved. They were people once, Asuka! All of them! You…you know how Titans are made now, don't you? You know how to turn people into them…and you still want them? You're sick."

"The power they grant an Eva will save the people back home, baka."

"What people? The ones that should be protected…or just a few that would disregard commoners because they don't do anything of any significance? When the people here that fought the Titans to protect everyone else asked for my help, I wanted to believe that I was helping everyone, not just the wealthy people that refused to leave the Walls or some cultists that believe the Walls to be holy and may have tried to kill me one time. You have no idea what you're putting at risk from the Titans if you keep trying to gather them for NERV."

"It's not like you can keep people from exploiting these things forever. Sooner or later, someone's going to get what they need from them and change everything."

Suddenly, Unit-01's shoulder pylon opened up and it pulled out its Progressive Knife.

"What the Hell are you doing, Third?" Asuka asked him.

"Leave, Asuka," he told her, something like he was regretting something he had decided on. "Take your people that came for Unit-01 and the Titans and go back…or else."

"Or else, what, you lousy excuse for a pilot?"

As the purple Eva slowly brought up its knife, Shinji answered, "I will dismember your Eva, Asuka. If Titans come and attack you, how well do you think you can fare without arms or legs?"

-x-

"…Do you think he'll really do it?" Hyuga asked Shigeru.

"If he's that determined to keep the people there safe from these things, there's no telling what he'll do," Shigeru responded.

"Unit-02, attack Unit-01," Gendo ordered. "We have no time for the Third Child's petulance."

Misato was among the few that was uncomfortable with this order.

-x-

"I'd like to see you make good on your threat, Third," Asuka told Shinji, seeing his face on her holographic screen.

The boy closed his eyes for a moment, as if to let himself gather his thoughts and emotions, and then reopened them to look at her. There was regret in a choice he had made in that moment.

"You stupid girl," he called her, and then Unit-01 dashed towards her. "Don't blame me if this ends up killing you!"

Unit-02 braced for impact, but was immediately sent flying backwards by Unit-01!

Crash! It fell hard onto the ground.

"Damn you!" Asuka shouted, but Unit-01 was already atop her.

BASH! The purple Eva had punched the red one hard in the face with its left arm.

"Aaah!" Asuka shouted again, not believing that this boy actually punched her.

BASH! Unit-01 punched Unit-02 again…and again…and again.

Then, with its Prog. Knife, the purple Eva did the unthinkable: It stabbed the red Eva in the left arm, digging the blade deeply to the synthetic muscle and bone.

"Aaaahh!" Asuka screamed, feeling like it was her arm being cut into.

She managed to kick Unit-01 off her, but part of the intended damage had already been done. There was no guarantee that her Eva could use its left arm now with the injury it sustained.

"You idiot!" She called Shinji as he got back up, still gripping his knife in his hand.

"If you want Titans, you'll pay the unforgivable price for them," he told her.

"And you're going to hinder NERV from doing what needs to be done, you will suffer the consequences for your stubbornness."

"Not as stubborn as the choice you make easy for me to decide. If given the choice to stay here…I'd take it if meant being able to start over with no one to tell me how to live my life or tell me what to do."

That must've hit Asuka somewhere deep down. She thought it was no different from a cowardice point of view, but this boy, this…this traitor…saw it as a way to walk away from his responsibilities back home…and another shot at her pride.

"I will break your neck, you stupid idiot," she told him.

-x-

"…If this thing is as stable as it seems, and the fact that connects to another world," a man told Misato about the Dirac Sea portal over the phone, "imagine the possibilities of being able to collect new resources to replenish the ones we don't have much of or at all."

"Except there are people in that other world that need them," she told him.

"But from what was mentioned by the Third Child, there aren't that many people left in the world there. These…Titans, as they're called, have greatly decimated the population."

"And Shinji wants only to help them take back their world. It's not like anyone else is going to do it for them without assistance."

Suddenly, the purple-haired woman heard something, an alarm, on the other end.

"We're under attack!" She heard a woman scream.

"What's going on over there?" She questioned.

"Two giants! Humanoids! Attacking the base to get to the portal!" The man shouted. "Titans!"

 _Titans? Here?_ She was confused.

-x-

It was unexpected! Nobody saw them coming at all. To think that there were two Titans in Nevada already, and they were aiming for the portal, probably to escape to the other world or even to return back to it. One looked like a hunched man covered in bone-like plates from head to toe while the other looked like a skinned girl with blond hair.

The NERV security fired at the Titans, but nothing from bullets to rockets hurt them or even slowed them down. But the strangest thing of it was that, despite what they heard from what the Third Child had said about these creatures being man-eaters, these two Titans never grabbed any one person to eat.

No, they just kicked, threw or knocked away any that stood in their way.

"Grr," the one covered in plates growled.

"Haurgh!" The female shrieked back.

-x-

 _The Way Back_

It was either blind luck or a miracle for them. But the Titan Shifters, Reiner Braun and Annie Leonhart, had found themselves in a ravaged land known as the United States of America, and had felt a strange presence that attracted them to a decimated piece of land called Nevada. It was here that they found a portal that they heard, as people, somehow connected to the world they came from, and felt that it could return them back.

" _Let's get this over with,"_ said Reiner to Annie as he took a jagged rock and cut himself with it on his left leg while she cut herself with a small, curved blade on her ring.

Nobody ever saw anyone with a bomb or anything, but they saw the explosion and the two Titans approaching the base to get to the Dirac Sea portal.

They jumped into the Dirac Sea and disappeared.

-x-

"…The Titans… One armored… One like a girl… They jumped into the Dirac Sea…" The man told Misato over the phone in the aftermath. "They're gone."

But Misato got the feeling that these two Titans weren't exactly gone. No, she felt that they were just taking this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…to get home.

-x-

Kaede walked down the street until she reached the current safety limit that was decided upon by the Garrison members that had yet to explore the land further away from the salvaged city the people were rebuilding. She leaned against a building side and sighed about her last conversation with Shinji. It wasn't the fact that she revealed her awful secret to him that bothered her right now. What was bothering her right now…was what Shinji probably thought of her right now, how she seemed to depriving people of more hope…and it was something she didn't want to be accused of doing. As much as she wanted to deny it ever happened to her, that it had to have been done to some other girl by someone that deserved to be despised and forgotten, she couldn't undo her own past.

 _He turned me into a monster,_ she thought, now sitting on the ground, looking up at the sky. _I'm a monster. I'm a Titan, an enemy to the world…and I don't want to be. I just want to be myself…before that day…before the Wall Maria fell. Shinji said I could give hope like he does with his Eva…but what is hope to one like me?_

Twinkle. She saw something shoot across the sky.

It looked like…a falling star. But it was falling too closely towards the city.

Kaede got worried and got up quickly.

The mysterious object zoomed towards the patch of land just outside the city limits.

Crashed! It smashed into the ground and caused a slight tremor.

"Oh!" Kaede gasped as the ground shook and stopped. _I should've made a wish that mattered._

The ground started to shake again, but there was a familiar shaking to it, something that just…took hold of Kaede.

"Oh, no," she realized this feeling. "Titans."

-x-

They were very fortunate that their hardened Titan bodies were able to withstand the return.

Reiner was convinced that he had never felt such intense heat before since he obtained his Titan power.

Annie, on the other hand, was just grateful that she had survived and was on the ground. She had never seen such a sight as the night sky being as vast beyond the very sky.

As they climbed out of the impact crater, they saw the city ruins they had passed years before, seeing that it looked like it was being reclaimed by people.

"How long do you suspect we've been gone?" Annie questioned.

"Too long," Reiner stated simply.

BOOM! Something exploded from the ocean, and they saw large, hulking humanoids that seemed like the Colossal and Armored Titans put together.

"Titans? From the water?" Annie went; she had heard stories about such creatures, but never believed in them being to survive for so long because of the lack of sunlight below.

-x-

Shinji heard the sound of an explosion from near the city and feared for the civilians if it was due to the Titans underwater. His fight with Asuka, who was thrown to the ground by him after punching her hard in the face by him, would have to wait until he ascertained the situation there.

"I don't have any more time to deal with you, Asuka, but if you value your life, you'll leave while you still can," he told her as he walked away.

"Get back here and fight!" He heard her shout as she got back up. "We're not done!"

But as she got up, the purple Eva was already a decent distance away from her.

"There's still more Titans in those large walls, you know!" She tried to threaten him. "You know I can shatter them and release them! Don't think I won't, Third!"

Shinji stopped…and then responded to her threat.

"Do whatever you feel you have to, Asuka," he told her as he resumed his trek back to the city. "Just know that you made that choice…just as I've made my choice to stay here. If you want this Eva…you'll have to kill me for it because it's mine to use to give these people back their world…and I'm not going to hand it over."

"You spineless coward! Weakling! You're a disgrace!"

But Shinji kept running.

 _If that's the way you want to play it, Third,_ thought Asuka as she turned to go back to the Walls, _it's all on you._

-x-

If what Shinji told her was true, and he learned of this from the Survey Corps, then the Titans were attracted more to people with the power to become Titans more than regular people. This meant, as much as she hated it to be true, that the Titans would be more attracted to her than others.

One such Titan actually looked down at the ground…and at her.

"Oh, no," she gasped, her left hand shaking.

" _Whoever the Dark Titan is, they're a harbinger of hope, too,"_ she recalled Shinji's voice from before she told him the truth. _"They have a power that help rather than harm, undo the Titans and turn them back into people again."_

" _This had to be done, Kaede,"_ her grandfather's voice uttered from the depths of her conscious. _"It had to be done."_

" _It's not you fault, Kaede."_

She ran from the buildings, away from the city, hoping they would follow her and ignore the people that would be heading towards the shelters. Right now, she wanted to keep her parents safe the fear of getting eaten by mindless abominations.

BOOM! Another explosion, one of fiery energy instead of watery, came from afar, and Kaede saw two more Titans appear.

 _Titan Shifters,_ she realized, seeing one that looked distinctively like a girl without skin. _What is going on here?_

-x-

Shinji saw the large Titans near the city, but was just as shocked to see two smaller ones that he hadn't seen since he first arrived and defeated the Colossal Titan.

"The Armored and Female Titans?" He questioned. "The worst part is that there's barely any preserved Dark Titan flesh left that's still usable…and we have no other spinal fluid available to deal with these Titans. Could today get any worse than before?"

With very few buildings to maneuver around or on, nobody within the Survey Corps or Garrison would be able to aid Shinji, and there was very little doubt that Eren would be able to control the number of Titans Shinji was seeing emerging from the water; it wasn't that anyone lacked any faith in the Titan Shifter's capabilities, but due to the recent return of the Dark Titan and the discovery that its flesh was saturated in spinal fluid, there had been very little need to resume training to control this Coordinate power he obtained.

Boom! He heard another explosion and looked to where it came from, seeing some smoke clear…and the Rogue Titan charging towards the Armored and Female Titans.

"Okay," he told himself, deciding that if Eren was going to deal with those two, he would deal with the larger Titans. "Let's do this."

He saw the larger Titans turning away from the city, however, as if there was something else on their minds, however mindless they were right now.

 _Where do you think you're going?_ He wondered sarcastically, charging towards the closest Titan and knocking it down.

-x-

Smash! Asuka, enraged by Shinji's would-be victory over her, shattered more of Wall Maria, releasing more Titans from their confinement.

She would be long gone before the ones she knocked down could get back up.

 _I'll show him,_ she thought, tearing as much of the wall down as possible.

-x-

"…Aaah!" Kaede screamed as a Titan was sent crashing into the ground eight feet away from her. "Aah!"

Shinji probably didn't notice her, so she couldn't fault him for his attempts.

She saw him punch several other Titans away, but not a single one was harmed to the point of death…and she knew why.

 _Shinji, just make them stop,_ her mind raced between the fear of being killed by the Titans and the fear of being stripped of what was left of her life by the people if they found out what she was.

Stomp! One Titan that was missed had gotten close enough to Kaede to reach down.

"Gaah!" She gasped and ran to avoid the Titan's left arm.

She barely evaded it…and its right arm. It was true. The Titans were more attracted to Titan Shifters than they were to regular people. She had become a prize to the Titans that wanted to eat her.

-x-

It felt hopeless! It seemed that for every Titan Shinji knocked down or threw aside to disable them, three or four more took its place.

 _They were people that cared once,_ he kept reminding himself of the possibility of saving these Titans. _Damn it, Kaede, I wish there was another way to resolve this!_

-x-

"…But there isn't another way, is there?" Kaede found herself saying, as if responding to something only Shinji would have said, falling into a crater.

" _You really like Mr. Ikari, don't you?"_ Her mother's voice echoed in her. _"You got to know him."_

" _Heh, someone like this Ikari boy,"_ her stepfather had expressed an opinion about Shinji, _"is someone you don't likely see every generation, Kaede."_

But Kaede wouldn't have known anything about that belief. She kept to herself, never thought about boys, about what she could do outside the Walls, about any future free of the Titans. It wasn't even until she met Shinji that night in Shiganshina that she felt she was entitled to think about him as some sort of sign from the heavens that there was hope for her. Hope that she could put this horrible aspect of her past behind her.

"Will I still matter to anyone…if it all comes down to my last moment?" She questioned.

-x-

 _You would still matter to me, Kaede,_ Shinji found himself thinking of the ramifications of what could happen to the girl he ended up liking, as he suddenly found himself getting jumped by at least twelve Titans. _You can be hope for the people, the same as me. As there are many kinds of hope, I want to be your hope for a life beyond that of a Titan Shifter._

-x-

The first time she did it, it was beyond her control. She wasn't even sure how it happened. The second time, all she did was cut her left hand. But now…now, she put her right thumb in her mouth, thinking only about being hope for the people, for Shinji…and bit down as hard as she could.

"Grrraagh!" She screamed, feeling like she had bitten the whole thing off as she tasted her own blood.

FLASH-BOOM! Kaede felt like she had been set on fire and then submerged into hot water, numbing her of pain.

Then, she felt like she had been laying over a strange log made of a mattress, only warmer and like skin. It reached out to her, surrounded her, wrapped around her and would not let her go. As she opened her eyes, she saw that she was above the Titans, like she was made larger than anything she had ever felt before. She wanted to talk, to say something, but she didn't hear any words come out of her mouth, just sounds that you would hear large and predatory animals make when fighting or hunting.

The Dark Titan had returned again.

-x-

The three Titan Shifters that were under twenty meters saw the Dark Titan and couldn't believe it had returned.

With the sole exception of its increased size, it was exactly the same as it was the day Wall Maria had fallen when the Colossal Titan had broken it so the smaller Titans could invade and cause the mayhem they committed without conscience.

What nobody had ever seen or heard of that occurred that day was how the Female Titan had fought the Dark Titan…and was forced to retreat due to its raw strength and savagery. In her mind, Annie didn't suspect this Titan to be just some poor soul that lost their humanity a long time ago. No, in her mind, this had to be someone with a conscious unhindered by a useless drive to devour others, but found that to be impossible because of an ancient, historical fact.

 _There are only nine Titan Shifters at any one time,_ she thought, never able to understand how there was another Titan Shifter that appeared separate from the original nine…if this was indeed the case. _Any other is just a mindless drone._

The Dark Titan raised its arms up and flexed its fingers.

"Grr!" It growled, and the Titans that ganged up around Unit-01 suddenly turned to gather around it instead. "Guuragh!"

In less than three seconds…they lunged at it and bit into its flesh wherever they could, but were unable to get at the head, causing copious amounts of fluid to spray out of the bite wounds.

 _Kaede,_ thought Shinji, concerned for her safety. _So long as they can't get at the Titan body's nape, she should be alright._

Suddenly, eight of the Titans that were biting deep into the legs started steaming up and released their hold to get away.

"Haaaurgh!" They shrieked, looking like they were trying to cough out whatever got into their throats.

They fell and evaporated.

"Uuuragh!" Other Titans biting into the Dark Titan's arms and waist started shrieking as they released it, feeling the same effects their fellow Titans were feeling, evaporating and choking on something they didn't know they were after.

And as they fell a and gave off steam, the injuries of the Dark Titan regenerated.

It looked at Unit-01 and gave an odd roar to it as more Titans started emerging from the ocean water.

-x-

"…Incredible," went Armin, not believing their luck when the Dark Titan returned again and allowed the other Titans to sink their teeth into it.

On the hill, among the civilians that watched the battle, even Mikasa was impressed by the display of what had to be a miracle among miracles for them. Whoever this Dark Titan was that suddenly came back into their lives, she wanted to know who they were and know what else they were capable of.

Soon enough, a large portion of where the Titans were had become consumed by steam and the wind blew close to the hill, causing a type of breeze that was like a hot spring made of mist.

"Gosh, that's warm," said Connie to the others.

"You said it," added Sasha.

"Yeah, they give off a lot of heat when they evaporate," went Hange, wiping her goggles of the condensation forming on them.

-x-

BURST! The left fist of the Rogue Titan exploded upon striking the face of the Armored Titan as hard as it could've hit any Titan before.

It might've cost it its left hand…but the Armored Titan lost its head, exposing the person Eren knew was controlling it.

Reiner Braun!

"Raaaaaurgh!" The Rogue Titan roared at him as its arm regenerated.

The Female Titan came running, its arms crystallized for taking the Rogue Titan's head off.

Grip! It was stopped and grabbed at by Unit-01, who picked it up and started squeezing it tightly.

"Huuurgh!" The Female Titan groaned, unable to use its power to call upon the mindless Titans to the Eva in a feeding frenzy because its body was feeling constricted.

With no other alternative, Annie cut off her connection to the Titan body and started emerging from the nape; she was hoping that she would have at least a minute to escape and create a new Titan body, since she was stronger than Bertolt and Reiner in terms of combat.

-x-

It was the second time Shinji found himself dealing with someone that had this strange power that the Titans possessed that used it against the free people of the world, but he had come to accept that there were only three types of Titan Shifters so far in this world he was trying to give back to the people. There were the ones that used this power to help the defenseless, the ones that harmed others for wrongful reasons…and those that had the power with absolutely no desire, no agenda to want it, whatsoever, regardless of their situation. However, the last time he faced them, all he did was throw them into the sky. Now, he had to deal with them.

Seeing the person try to escape, he used the Eva's other hand to grab her before she could do something either suicidal as jumping to her or dangerous as creating another Titan body to use.

"I don't think so," he told her.

He made sure his grip was tight enough to keep her in check, but loose enough to not kill her; the Survey Corps needed as much information as possible on a new matter.

"Aaaaurgh!" Several more Titans shrieked and groaned from their failed attempts to eat the Dark Titan. "Grrugh!"

They fell to their knees and palms, coughing and choking as they began to evaporate, generating intense steam from their pores.

Eren quickly grabbed Reiner and gripped him tightly in his Titan body's left hand so he couldn't escape or create another Titan body.

-x-

Misato couldn't bring herself to say that she was impressed by Asuka's response to Shinji's decision to remain on the other world and keep the Eva with him. She couldn't even bring herself to be impressed with Shinji's decision after being unable to get Asuka to back off the Titans after telling her they were dangerous to deal with let alone desire for any other reason. If there was more to Shinji's reason for choosing to stay there and keep the Eva with him, maybe some hero indulging or because he met a nice girl there, she would've probably understood better. And then, there was his father, who was going to go to extremes to get the Eva back, even if it meant sending an army over there to declare war for its return.

"…Kaede," she suddenly heard Shinji's voice over the intercom.

On the holographic displays that were connecting to Unit-01, everyone saw what Shinji saw, and he saw a large, black-skinned Titan with long hair fall to the ground in front of him as it evaporated.

It was a surprise to the purple-haired woman that they were finally able to access the external visual data from the purple Eva after so long. And a greater surprise to see a young girl emerging from the Titan's nape.

 _My God,_ she thought.

-x-

Having completed her purpose, the Dark Titan's body evaporated and released the girl that controlled it. It was like a hot bath, only she still had her clothes on, and they were now damp.

"Ahh…" Kaede exhaled, mildly exhausted, but strong enough to stand.

"Ohh…" She heard some people around her as they came to.

Looking up at the Eva, Kaede thought of Shinji…and, despite looking worried, gave a peace sign that he showed her how to make with her left hand. Even though she didn't want to think about it, it felt…good to help people like Shinji did, to take something she viewed as a negative in her life…and turn it into a little bit of a positive. And to know that she mattered to someone.

To be continued…

A/N: The next chapter brings in character revelations and deeper truths.


	15. Explanation and Acceptance

Creation began on 05-11-17

Creation ended on 06-10-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Explanation and Acceptance

Kaede didn't expect to have the Survey Corps looking at her as she sat on the carrier facing away from them. But then again, she didn't expect to just be permitted to go home, either. Her parents were on their way over and an explanation was expected of her.

The only benefit of this situation was that Shinji was here with her.

"So, she's the Dark Titan?" Hange questioned. "I don't believe it."

"Hard to imagine a simple girl like her to be able to take down over eighty Titans over five years ago," added Connie.

"Still," went Armin, "there she is. Somebody whose ability can help us even more."

"What do we know about this girl?" Levi asked.

"Kaede Sogen," said Mikasa to him. "Fourteen years old, former resident of Wall Maria's Shiganshina District and Wall Rose's Trost District. Among the people that were relocated here after the Beast Titan was captured."

She left out the fact that she had been around before to find Shinji like some sort of fan; that was nobody's business but her own.

Erwin came back onto the ship and walked over to Levi.

"Her parents have arrived," he revealed.

"Quite the day today, huh?" Kaede asked Shinji, looking over at the Survey Corps on the other side of the carrier's flight deck.

"Yeah," he responded, though he was trying to be sarcastic, which he thought she was trying to be. "Can I ask you something about what happened?"

"Yeah, sure."

"When you turned into the Dark Titan and stopped those Titans by restoring them to humanity…how did it feel? I mean, how did you feel?"

Kaede sighed and expressed, "I was just trying not to get killed out there…and not to hurt anyone…and help you. It's hard to feel great about something you feel is the worst thing to have ever happened to you…or how to react to the fact that your parents now know."

Shinji looked over at the corps and saw her mother and stepfather coming out of the gathering to where they were.

"I hope they will be understanding," he told her.

"Kaede, are you alright?" Her mother asked her.

"I'm fine," she answered.

-x-

For some reason, these Titans that were within the wall were completely passive the second the sun went down. They just stood still or laid on the ground.

 _Just like the one we caught earlier,_ Asuka thought, suspecting there was some relation between their activity and the sunlight. _They must depend on the sun to move. At night, they're no better than that baka is: Useless._

Then, looking at the expanse of land within the wall, the redhead decided to do a little exploring since the power source her Eva had was still functioning properly.

-x-

Everyone was quiet. No one said anything as Kaede told them that she was the Dark Titan.

"…But…why didn't you tell anyone that you were a Titan Shifter?" Armin asked her when she revealed her identity to them.

"In five words? I never wanted to be."

And in five words, it was implied by the minority of the Survey Corps, including Eren, that this girl was turned into a Titan Shifter…against her will.

"Do you…know who did this to you, Kaede?" Her mother asked her.

"It was…Grandfather," she answered her, sounding very resentful when she spoke of him.

Even her hands were shaking.

"But…your grandfather was dead before the wall fell," her mother told her, but her stepfather, who was sitting across the table from his stepdaughter, got up and walked away.

"Sig?" His wife asked, wondering what bothered him.

"Not your father, Mother," Kaede clarified who she meant. "It was his."

"You mean…your step-grandfather?" Hange questioned her. "He's the one that…did this to you?"

"That's right."

"Did he say why he did it?" Eren asked her.

"He only said that it had to be done, that it had to be me."

-x-

"…I can't believe it," said the stepfather, banging his forehead against a locker door. "I can't believe that he went this far."

"Um, Mr. Sogen, sir?" He turned and saw Shinji standing at the entrance to what was a locker room on the carrier.

"Mister Ikari," he greeted the boy.

"Shinji, please," the boy responded. "The formality…really isn't my cup of tea. About Kaede… I doubt she hates you for what was done to her."

"My father… I didn't know, you know… I just thought she was being distant towards me because her mother and I got married shortly after her father died. He was my best friend growing up."

"So…you married your best friend's wife? I rarely believed in such a fact of life."

"I was…just keeping a promise made ten years ago."

"A promise?"

"If something happened to him, Hagen, my friend, made me promise to take care of Christine and Kaede. My father was the only person I knew was against that promise."

"Kaede's step-grandfather?"

"Yeah."

"Who was he?"

"A man obsessed with the Titans…and I fear it was his obsession that killed him when Wall Maria fell five years ago."

"How obsessed was he?"

-x-

"…What did he do to you, Kaede?" Christine asked her daughter, unsure of whether or not to believe her when she said it was her step-grandfather that turned her into a Titan.

"When you two were out one night, he came into my room…and then strapped me to his basement table," Kaede told her, recalling the horrid memory as though it occurred only the day before. "He went and started shooting my arms and legs up with these substances. I don't remember much of that night, just that he said that he wasn't sure what would happen if he did it to himself…and that what he was doing was for the sake of everyone."

-x-

"…It was the way Titans were capable of feats that weren't possible that intrigued him him," Sig told Shinji about his father. "How big they were at their peak height of fifteen meters, whether or not they could get any bigger, how strong they were said to be, their ability to regenerate from grievous injuries inflicted upon them, even their longevity. It bothered my mother and I that he spent as much of his time with his beliefs that my mother had me away from the house long after dark everyday. She didn't want me around him after I was twelve."

"Obsession is just another way of saying a person's crazy when they focus on something too much," said Shinji.

"I never told my mother, but I really hated my father. I thought I'd be long gone from Shiganshina after she got sick and died…but then he suffered in an accident with a horse-driven cart one day and lost his right leg. I wish I could say that I stayed with him out of pity and contempt."

"Not many people willing to look after others that are elderly or incapacitated for those that either can't or won't."

"If I had known what he was planning on doing to Kaede, I'd have stopped him. I'd have him arrested and locked away so deep in a dark place that he'd never know sunlight again."

"But…he died when Shiganshina was attacked five years ago, right? I mean, the district was infested with many Titans. If they didn't get to him, then surely, just maybe, he got buried under a pile of rubble and was unable to get out."

"I wish I could believe that, young man. I was part of the reconstruction crew that came back to Shiganshina after you and the Survey Corps cleaned out the remaining Titans that were trying to get away. The first thing I did was go back to my house to try and find him…or what was left of him. I couldn't even find his crutches laying around."

"Then…there's a chance that he might be alive somewhere."

"I hope to God that he's very dead. I can't face Christine or Kaede right now, knowing what he did."

Shinji was then reminded of the feeling of guilt by association, and needed to speak his mind about what was done…and what needed to be done.

"What your father did is all on him, Mr. Sogen," he told him. "What he did to Kaede without so much as even asking you or her mother for permission to try an unforgivable act, it's his sin that he will never be forgiven for. If he's dead, then let his sins, his crimes, his obsession, weigh him down in the depths of Hell for eternity. You didn't make him do what he did. You didn't make him try to turn a girl I just met recently or spent time at sea getting to know into the very thing we all barely understand and want to get rid of so that no one else suffers. You want to wash your hands clean of him, then face the people that he harmed."

-x-

"…I thought that if I just tried to bury what happened, I could get on with my life," Kaede continued. "But then the Colossal Titan appeared again…and again…and then everything changed when Shinji showed up."

"And now, after all this time?" Christine asked her daughter.

"Now? I don't know. I've told you everything I can remember, everything I wish I could forget. I guess the only thing I can even ask is…what is going to happen to me?"

Kaede never looked at her mother during the entire revelation. She feared facing her…and then being rejected by her. That alone would just…break her beyond words.

"They can't kill my daughter, I'll let you know that," she heard her say to her. "No matter what was done to her that made her into something we don't fully understand. It would crush me."

Kaede felt her mother's left hand grasp hers.

"And I'm sure it would crush that cute friend of yours if something were to happen to you."

Somehow, she suspected that Shinji would wind up in this conversation.

-x-

Chained, suspended, and with a cannon aimed at them. This was the current status of Reiner and Annie, who were being watched by members of the Survey Corps.

"You know, I can't believe you two and Bertolt actually tried to kill Marco," one of the female members stated. "I had thought we had seen the last of you when Shinji threw you away into the air like that months ago."

Without her ring to help trigger a transformation, Annie remained silent. She didn't even dare to bite her tongue in front of them lest they fire the cannon and blow her to smithereens.

"Who the Hell is Shinji?" Reiner asked, hoping to get an explanation.

"Our hope from the sky," one of the male members answered simply. "The slayer of the Colossal Titan and bringer of freedom to the people that can now live beyond the Walls."

"You three…or rather… Yeah, three out of the four of you so far…are the worst bunch of people we've ever seen," another female member expressed. "Your attack on Wall Maria took the lives of three of my cousins…and they never did anything to anyone to deserve what happened to them."

"Fortunately, unlike you two and this guy that the Garrison are keeping in check, Bertolt Hoover, seems to be the only one that may be allowed to walk away from this…so long as he cooperates and helps us end this war with the Titans," one of the men expressed.

"Bertolt?" Annie finally spoke up.

"Yeah, he was fortunate enough to survive the encounter, even if it came at the cost of his Titan abilities. I think a Garrison member expressed that he claimed that it was facing God…and being punished for harming humanity."

-x-

"…I can't believe you knew about this," Eren expressed to Shinji, who Kaede had confided in about her Titan abilities, sounding almost angry.

"It was only earlier today that she told me, and she made me promise I wouldn't tell anyone," Shinji defended his actions. "Despite whatever it is that you're thinking about her, she hates what was done to her because she worries about how much of her future has been compromised by being a Titan Shifter. She doesn't know what to do about it all."

Then, despite his own infuriation, Eren stated, "For a long time, I thought the Dark Titan was a guy. It's hard to believe that it was always a girl."

Shinji sighed and responded, "Hey, I still find it hard to believe that the Survey Corps employs teens to fight Titans, not all that different from the people of my world exploiting teens to pilot the Evas against Angels. And…one should never underestimate a person simply because of something as common as their gender."

"Hard to believe even further in the fact that she was the one that saved my mother from being eaten by a Titan…and she doesn't even know."

"She knows. Believe me, she knows."

"Do you believe in her? Do you believe that she can be a harbinger of hope, too?"

"I do…because there's no one else like her…and I don't mean because of what she's capable of as a Titan. She's kinda like you…and not so much like you. She has this power she never wanted, this freedom she never knew she could offer, and there's no desire, no drive for revenge, whatsoever. If anything, maybe her role is the easiest one here. She's…she's the one person that can do what no other Titan-empowered person can do, which is undo the Titans that exist. And the strangest thing of it is… She might be the only unique Titan Shifter the world has ever seen…or will ever know. Of course, I can't really prove my belief until I know more about Titan Shifters. I need to know how much of her life has been changed by being one."

-x-

At least they permitted her to go home for the time being. It wasn't like she could run off anywhere or something of the sort. It was that Kaede didn't want to be seen as the enemy by anyone. The girl was still adjusting to the revelation of the Survey Corps knowing her past…and she worried about Shinji getting reprimanded for keeping quiet about it.

"So…now what?" Her mother questioned. "Will you be alright with us knowing, Kaede?"

"I honestly don't know," she responded, sitting on the sofa. "I've kept it all bottled up inside for so long, it feels different, being able to finally talk about it. What do you two think of me?"

"Me?" Sig spoke, entering the kitchen and opening a refrigerator to pull out a bottled water. "I think you're still the same, no matter how much of what you're now capable of. And…you give the people hope now, just like Shinji does."

"Give hope? Me? All I did was bite my thumb and let people I don't know bite at my arms and legs until they choked on what they filled their mouths with."

"Heh, still greater than what could've been," her mother stated. "And…no matter what comes your way, we'll still be here for you. You're no monster."

It eased Kaede to hear that from her mother.

-x-

"…This is the one part of my father's notes we don't really understand, despite knowing the rest of the research regarding Titan Shifters," said Eren to Shinji, showing him the room aboard the carrier they used to store the files found in the Yeager home's cellar. "It's written in a language we don't understand. We thought it might be some sort of ancient dialect or code…"

"It's Japanese," Shinji cut him off, recognizing the writing. "Ancient, but still in use by those back home. It says, _'The Curse of Ymir'_?"

"Ymir?" Armin, who, along with Mikasa, was also present, uttered. "Like the girl that was in the trainee group we graduated from?"

Of course, Shinji didn't know who they were talking about; he had never met this Ymir girl in person. As he read the writing of his ancestors of this world, he made sure to translate it into English for the others as accurately as possible.

"Oh, no," he sighed as he read a piece that detailed something he was afraid. "No, this can't be right. This cannot be right."

"What is it?" Mikasa questioned him.

"Eren, how many years has it been since you became a Titan Shifter?" Shinji asked.

"Going on five years now," he answered him. "Why?"

"This section of Japanese is older than the rest of the writing, but if it is all accurate, then the Curse of Ymir is the only negative to being a Titan Shifter. It speaks of nine Titans. The nine under the one that spread her power to nine bloodlines, blessed and cursed with the power of thought over action, that followed the same path of self-destruction as she did after fifteen years of possessing the power of the Titans. All it states is that…upon their final year of having the power of their respective Titan, the bearer's life starts to become unbearable…as they suffer from what remained of Ymir's Curse as their power abandoned them in search of a new vessel to carry on the Titan."

"Wait a minute," Armin went, confused. "You're saying that Eren…and any other Titan Shifters, for that matter, have only fifteen years of usage of the Titan power before they…die?"

"I didn't say they die after fifteen years. I said that the power leaves them after fifteen years…and life becomes unbearable for them, afterwards. I can only assume that it means you and any other Titan Shifter that obtained their power by eating a previous bearer before they could lose it…will just suffer from some type of constant fatigue."

"Fatigue?" Mikasa questioned.

"Extreme tiredness," he clarified. "You'd just be exhausted…all the time."

Eren tried to imagine the rest of his life as a worthless waste of space if he lived to be in his fifties…but couldn't see past being thirty or forty. He couldn't even see himself as being exhausted all the time.

"But hey, I could be wrong," Shinji told them. "That's the thing with languages being translated into languages. They're not always translated accurately. I don't want to jump to conclusions until I read the entire portion. And…if there's a way around this, we'll find it, right?"

"Yeah," Eren agreed with him. "Don't give up until you've tried everything."

"But hold on," went Armin, "this is for those that were turned into Titans first before devouring the previous shifter. What if, just by some weird possibility, this doesn't apply to Ms. Sogen?"

As far as they and the rest of the Survey Corps knew from what Kaede had revealed to them, the girl had only been injected with various Titan Serums…and had never devoured a Titan Shifter at all in her life for their powers. If this was true, then Kaede was unique, one of a kind, independent of the Titan Shifters that came before her…and may come after her.

"That's a pretty big 'if', Mr. Arlert," Shinji told him; only the deepest part of him that came from a place of great concern hoped that what he suggested was true. "Even so, everyone here is entitled to live a full life when this thing with the Titans is over."

-x-

"…So, there's another wall, huh?" Asuka went, standing in front of Wall Rose as the sun began to rise. "I look forward to seeing these people suffer because that stupid idiot refused to fall in line."

-x-

Even after writing down the exact translation to the portion he read concerning a Titan Shifter's lifespan, Shinji couldn't bring himself to think that Kaede fell into the same category or occupied the same boat as the regular Titan Shifters. He read and rechecked every word, every sentence and paragraph, and what he found was a concern for Eren and those like him; even if their only weakness was the back of their necks like with the common Titans, and even if they could regenerate injuries, Titan Shifters only had a power-endowed lifespan of thirteen-fifteen years as a Titan Shifter after devouring one.

 _He's gotta be at least fifteen right now,_ he thought, closing the notebook and gathering the four pages he had to translate the information discovered. _Which means that, unless relieved of the power by another Titan or some other Titan Shifter, he'll be a worn-out man when he reaches thirty._

But with this being the only acceptable con of being a Titan Shifter that he could find, Shinji didn't find anything else to indicate that this power changed anything else about the person. All he found was that the Titan power always resided in the person's spine and spinal fluid…and couldn't be passed down from one generation to the next through procreation. This meant it could only be obtained through being devoured by another Titan…or reaching the end of the length of time that it could be used and it leaves the current host to reside within a new, random host. There was absolutely no other way of passing the power on.

 _If Kaede is similar to regular Titan Shifters in this way, then she's still as human as the day she was turned against her will,_ he thought, hoping that he was right. _She can't pass her abilities onto a new generation unless she's eaten by some Titan. Maybe the sooner she knows of this, she can feel some relief for her future._

As he stepped out of the room, he ended up in the presence of Levi.

"Sir," he greeted.

"Ikari," Levi responded, looking at the papers in his hand. "What is that?"

"Titan Shifter information I have translated from an old language nobody here reads. Japanese translated into English. The only drawback of being a Titan Shifter I've found, which may not even apply to Ms. Sogen."

"Japanese?"

"My native language."

"Very well. As you were."

Shinji bowed his head and walked away.

"Just tell me one thing, though," Levi stopped him. "The girl that controls the red behemoth who came after you with others from your world… Is she as dangerous as the Titans are?"

He turned to face the leader of the Survey Corps and answered, "Asuka Langley Soryu should probably be famous for being infamous. Her pride, her arrogance, makes her hard to be around. She wants to be better than others, thinks she's better than others, just because she can pilot the Eva. Now, I fear she's even more dangerous because of the fact that Titans can increase an Eva's power…and she wants them only for that. She refuses to see the danger they could bring back home if they were brought there."

"If it comes to it, can you do something about her so that she isn't a threat to the people here?"

"If you're asking me if I can kill her… I don't know if I even have the guts to do it."

"She may not give you that option. But you'll find a way to deal with her if she persists."

-x-

The Garrison members atop Wall Rose weren't in the best of shape to handle the current situation they were in. With the relocation of the majority of the Walls' population to the salvaged city beyond, they were undermanned and unprepared to handle the Titans that showed up.

They were not in the same capacity as the Colossal Titan, but their size and numbers made them an intimidating bunch.

-x-

Kaede had a bad feeling. It wasn't like what she discovered from salvaged books that spoke of words she had never heard of, like "premonition". But it was a feeling of intense woe. Even as she lay on her back on the roof of her building, looking up at the blue sky, she couldn't keep her mind off the sense of impending darkness.

 _What is going on out there?_ She wondered, raising her left hand up into the air. _Why do I feel this way?_

"Kaede?" She looked over towards the door leading to the roof and saw Shinji.

"Hey."

"How are you today?"

"Better than yesterday, I suppose."

"Well, I hope that I can lift your spirits a little with what I looked into on Titan Shifters."

"Oh."

"It's just something that may not entirely apply to you. Your life, your very future…may not be compromised by your current status as a shifter."

"What do you mean?"

"Your powers reside in your spine, Kaede. The power of a Titan Shifter resides within the person that possesses it only. So, unless you're devoured by some random Titan…or even a Titan Shifter…or outlive a specific length of time, even, the power you have stays within you."

"I…I…don't understand what you're saying, Shinji. What…are you talking about?"

"What I'm saying is…your Dark Titan ability can't be inherited by anyone unless they're a Titan themselves. You…you can still have a future of your choosing."

"You mean… I can have children of my own someday…and they wouldn't be like I am right now?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Unless you gave one of them a Titan Serum and let yourself be eaten by them in Titan form, you'd be the only Dark Titan until your final breath of life."

Then, getting up onto her feet, Kaede approached Shinji…and hugged him, surprising him. This was one of the few things that bothered her ever since that traumatic event over five years ago. If she had gone and done something that resulted in her having any children, she feared they'd be Titans like her and then executed, which is why she stayed away from any and all men whenever she was outside. It was only because she wanted to thank Shinji for clearing out the Titans and helping the people to reclaim Wall Maria that she was willing to put up with being around boys when she went looking for him that night in Shiganshina.

"You have no idea how much hearing this means to me," she told him. "It was one of the things I worried about for a long time."

"It's really because of you that I wanted to know more about Titan Shifters and how much of them is still human, only to find out that they're always human. They're just…enhanced in a way." He revealed.

"Enhanced? What is 'enhanced'?"

"It's a word some use to describe the status of a person, place or thing that has been affected in a way that makes them a bit better than before. Maybe a lake with water that is cleaner than any other source known, a garden with more varieties of flowers than any other garden, or even some soup with other flavors added to it."

"So…enhanced people?"

"Yeah…if you put it that way. Enhanced people are still people, just like how a lake is still a lake."

Then she let go of him, putting space between them.

"Again, thank you," she praised him. "This has worried me for a long time."

Shinji bowed his head to her. Then…looking at her face again, he looked at her eyes. It must've been because of the way the remains of the night sky looked because of the airglow, but Kaede's eyes once again had that look of sapphire shining in the moonlight. They were just so…mesmerizing.

And then, he blinked, looking away from her.

"I'm sorry," he apologized to her. "I was staring."

"It's okay," she told her. "Even though it's too late, I should probably go to bed now."

"Yeah. I…I should head back to the carrier in case they need me."

As he turned to leave, he wondered what else he could do to help Kaede…and why his heart pounded hard when he thought of her that way.

A hand grabbed him on his left shoulder and forced him to turn around. Before Shinji could say anything, before he even saw anything beyond the light of the ceiling, he felt a pair of lips press against his…and saw long, gray hair.

-x-

Maybe it was fate…or some kind of miracle, but the Titans standing just outside of Wall Rose didn't attack it just yet. In fact, they didn't come within thirty feet of the wall, like they were waiting for something, despite the numerous people that were still there, just within their grasp.

Even Asuka was puzzled at why the Titans didn't try to break down the wall; she assumed it would've been easy for them if she had been able to do it.

 _When are they going to ravage the people behind this wall?_ She wondered. _Do I have to do everything in this forsaken world?_

Flash! She saw two flares being shot into the air, one red and the other purple.

Flash! More flares were shot into the air.

She decided that there was no point in pressing any further in watching the Titans attack…and had Unit-02 grab the nearest one and dragged it with her away from the scene; one fifteen-meter Titan was sufficient and one that was at least forty-five-fifty-meters would impress NERV along with the Titan Serums they were able to obtain from that small community.

-x-

Maybe it was just her way of saying thanks in a more appreciated sense, but it was the first time that any girl actually made a choice to kiss Shinji like that. While she might've been the second girl to do so, in Shinji's mind, Kaede was the only one had a reason to want to do so, that wasn't meant to kill time or anything that Asuka had planned. And…as much as it should've been odd, he liked it.

 _She's nothing like Asuka or Ayanami,_ he thought as he entered the building next to the carrier, thinking about Kaede. _I mean, she's pretty, easy to talk to, has a great personality. Plus, she actually likes me for me, not because of the Eva._

Approaching the walkway leading up to the flight deck, the young man looked out at the vast ocean that held such promise for the people that had yet to explore what was left to see. It was a nice view, and it gave a sense of inspiration and motivation to keep looking forward and reaching for the hope that laid beyond them.

 _The next time I see Asuka,_ he found himself thinking, _I will tell her that there's no way I'm going back to the other world, even if after the Titans are all dealt with…and that she's better off giving up on using the Titans._

-x-

 _"Kaede,"_ Gendo heard Shinji say as he viewed the limited footage recorded from Unit-01 in his office, seeing the mysterious girl emerge from the body of the large Titan that helped put an end to the ones that ganged up around the Eva; it was the way his son said the girl's name. _"Kaede."_

It was as though the boy had a special relationship with the girl, which would conflict with the scenario he had planned out for after the Angels were defeated. But if what he suspected from the footage was true, then there was a chance that NERV could still reap the benefits of these Titans in their possession. From what had been theorized and deduced about them so far was that people that were turned into them were no different from the zombies of old, but a person that could become one at will, demonstrate intelligence and reasoning skills, they demonstrated a basis as a biological weapon against any potential foes. And if this girl was able to do just what was viewed, it also gave NERV a potential means to exploit the Third Child.

" _Kaede,"_ Shinji's voice uttered once again on the recording, and Gendo thought of the next plan of attack against his son.

-x-

For all intents and purposes, Kaede slept well until the afternoon of that day. Her parents didn't disturb her; their daughter hadn't slept since the previous day with the revelation of her Titan ability, so she needed as much rest as possible. Even the revelation of possibly being able to live a normal life, despite this power, gave the girl hope. And truth be told, it was also the best rest she had that lacked the cold memory of her step-grandfather.

When she woke up and looked out the window of her room, she could see some people working to fix as much of the damages caused by the Titans as possible. And looking down at her right hand, including the thumb she thought she had lost to trigger her power, she felt ease she hadn't felt in years.

-x-

"…This Titan is as dumb as the previous one we caught," Asuka told the soldiers as they tied up the Colossal Titan she dragged to their base.

"While you were dragging this freak here, Commander Ikari called in with an unusual order for you that would probably get better results later," one of the men told her. "For now, we're to return with what we acquired."

The redhead frowned at the order to leave this forsaken world; she wanted to get even with the Third Child as soon as possible, and if it wasn't the Titans she unleashed from within that wall she destroyed much of that caused him discord, it was going to be her because she would break his back. But the two Titans she had caught would be in NERV's possession for research and development into the Eva program, and the vials of Titan Serums would aid in giving the agency their own Titans to work with. So in the end, the Third Child had failed in stopping her from taking anything from this world.

"How soon until we can go?" She asked the men.

"An hour from now," one of them on the Titan's left hand revealed.

-x-

So far, no new Titan activity was present, from either the ocean or the unchecked land away from the city. The latest of people that were freed from the curse of the Titans were tended to for their fatigue and questioned about their final moments before their transformations, the Survey Corps finding out a lot more than from the last number of people freed by the Dark Titan's power.

"…So, there's something called…the Marley government on the other side of the world?" Shinji asked Armin, who was the easiest person to talk to about such new information.

"Yeah," the blond-haired boy revealed to him; even though Grisha Yeager's notes had revealed about a past feud between the nation of Marley and the nation called Eldia (both of which were places that didn't exist in the world Shinji came from), it was only discovered due to the fact that the history stemmed from Grisha's own past in the Marley nation and the agenda he had to want to deal with the people of that controlled the government of that nation. "It turns out there might be only two nations in this world after so many centuries. Eldia and Marley. Both have been locked in conflict over the power of the Titans ever since the defection and loss of what was called the Founding Titan. It also turns out that we're on a large island called Paradis."

"This is an island? All this time, I thought this was a continent. To think that I end up getting displaced from one island to another."

"The island you called Japan? What was it like as an island?"

"Well, first, Japan is a country in the form of a number of neighboring islands, forming an archipelago. Before a calamity that devastated my world fifteen years ago, all I ever read about Japan was that it was one of the strongest of nations in existence. The only problem it faced most of the time was just the population disorder in such a small place. Although Second Impact, more or less, resolved that issue, despite its results being of the violent sort."

"Do you ever…miss your home?"

"It…wasn't really home. I mean, I lived there, but I didn't really…live while I was there. I piloted the Eva just to face creatures I had no business facing for people I had no business knowing…because a guy that up and dumps me when I was little after my mother dies sends for me to fight them. And only attended school when I wasn't being told to pilot the Eva. Even if I go back to my world, even if there were some people waiting for me, all I would really have to look forward to…is just facing creatures that are a nightmare compared to the Titans…and a father whose only real concern is his missing Eva, not his son. And…I don't really want to go back to that type of life."

Armin was probably going to be out of line by asking the next question, but it was only because it stemmed from what some of the Survey Corps saw on the carrier and yesterday on the streets of the salvaged city.

"What about Ms. Sogen?" He asked Shinji, earning his confusing stare. "I mean, some of the corps members here think that she's…sweet on you."

Shinji sighed, wondering why those that saw him with Kaede just assume that he's attracted to her, almost in the same or similar fashion as Toji, Kensuke and Hikari pairing him with Asuka back in school. Just because they were seen together, it didn't technically mean they were a couple or anything. If anything, it just meant that they were small friends or comrades. Of course, Shinji still had very little grasp on what was known as the typical behavior of others around his own age.

"It never seems to end," he uttered, "the accusations I get from others."

"Huh?" Armin went, confused.

"Back on the other side, some thought to label me and Asuka as a couple when we weren't…just because she always yelled at me for even the most trivial of things. People that see other people together just draw up their own conclusions that might not even be true. You…can't suspect everyone of being involved with someone else just because you see them with someone else. You don't have all the facts to have the right assumption to think they're involved with one another."

Armin felt that Shinji was defensive about his personal relationships when others tried to poke a little fun at him, and decided to not dig deeper than he had already into the personal matter. They already had new problems and very few solutions for them beyond the struggle for freedom.

"Anyway, change of subject," Shinji told him, wanting to get back to the matter at hand. "I should talk to the Armored and Female Titan Shifters to understand why they attacked the people in the Walls to begin with. If what this new information states about the two nations is true…and only those of Eldian descent can have the power of any of the nine Titan Shifters associated to their history and culture…then they're of the same nation as all of you…and they're the ones being cruel towards you when you were all behind the Walls and didn't know anything about the world beyond them, that there were people out there that weren't killed by mindless Titans. The legends we hear about only tell us one thing while history tells us another. But this is the first time I've ever had to contend with a situation where legends and history get blurred together, resulting in things that might be true in one sense…but not so true in another sense."

"Except the Armored and Female Titan Shifters, Reiner Braun and Annie Leonhart…still have their powers. If they see you, they might try to trigger a transformation and kill you," Armin warned him; despite every revelation discovered, the Survey Corps' greatest advantage against the Titans (and now, perhaps their greatest edge against this Marley nation) was the Eva…and this meant that Shinji's safety and dependability was their current drawback.

Shinji didn't need to be reminded how important his help was to them all the time, but wasn't stupid to let these people that might want to kill him see him.

"They've only see the Eva," he uttered. "They don't know what I look like. Eva can be used to communicate with people without leaving the safety of the plug."

-x-

Sometimes, Eren wanted to punch these two for being so smug and indifferent towards the survivors of Shiganshina and the rest of the Wall Maria. He thought that after the Armored and Female Titans were disposed of by Shinji, they'd never have to deal with Reiner and Annie again for their role in what happened five years ago. But now, they were back…and now they had to deal with them…and he wasn't permitted to cause them any excruciating pain at all. He swore that, one way or another, he would whatever he had to in order to ensure that they suffered the worst way imaginable for all the lives they harmed.

This method of communication with them was unlike anything they've done in the Walls. It was mainly because they never heard of microphones or megaphones. In front of Reiner and Annie was a security camera, a microphone and a pair of loudspeakers, this way, any potential harm that could arise from the enemy Titan Shifters was reduced.

"I'm sorry we couldn't meet under different circumstances, Mr. Braun, Ms. Leonhart," Shinji's voice emanated from out the speakers, getting their attention. "I can guess that you know who I am by now."

"You're the guy that controls that purple giant that isn't a Titan," answered Reiner to the microphone in front of the Survey Corps. "You're the people's so-called hope from the sky."

"That's one way of putting it. I guess we can skip the rest of the formalities and get to the point of this. I know about Marley's ethnic cleansing views and their feud with Eldia. My question to you two…is why do you hate your own people to the point where you willingly cause death and destruction for them? Why are you out to kill those that didn't even know of any of you until now?"

Reiner didn't say anything, and neither did Annie.

"Has Marley become so much to the point of teaching you hatred that you accept their views without ever thinking about why? Or is it because you two are like your friend, Bertolt Hoover?"

Reiner's eyes twitched at the sound of Bertolt's name being mentioned.

"You know not what you speak," he uttered bitterly. "You disrespect the memory of the dead."

"I mean no disrespect towards anyone, Mr. Reiner…and your friend isn't dead."

At that moment, someone came from behind several of the corps members, surprising Reiner greatly. It was Bertolt, alive and well, but in restraints to keep him from resisting.

"Hey, Reiner," he greeted his friend.

"No," Reiner expressed. "I saw you die. You were ripped to pieces. How?"

"Maybe it was a dark miracle that saved me. All I really know is that after that encounter, my Titan powers were gone."

"That's not possible," went Annie in response to hearing this. "You're still alive."

"For how much longer, I don't know," Bertolt expressed, "not because of a curse, but because of their limited mercy (he gestured towards the Survey Corps). I told them all that I knew. I'm hardly a threat to even a deer now. You punch me…and all I do is bleed."

"If he finds out you turned on Marley, there will be no mercy," Reiner warned him, referring to the Warchief Zeke, who wouldn't accept weakness from any warrior under his authority.

"They know about the Warchief and have him in custody. He knows I'm just a man now."

"And?" Annie asked.

"He still prioritized getting the Coordinate, the Founding Titan, over all else."

"That was the mission objective."

"It's not my mission, anymore. I've accepted defeat. We don't have to continue fighting them with the half-empty promises that Marley offer for being warriors."

"Yes, we do," said Reiner to him.

"But why is that?" Shinji asked him through the speakers. "Why persist when there's truly no need to?"

"With Marley," went Annie to the microphone, "failure is punishable by death."

"If this is about the Curse of Ymir, all you may have to look forward to on that after thirteen-fifteen years of using the Titan power is just the rest of your life being fatigued. To just die instantly is a cruel fate to befall anyone, even those that may deserve less than mercy being offered to them."

"Eldia's people are cursed. Every day that passes, they're a constant reminder of the stigma we have to put up with."

"Stigma? And what is your stigma? What is your curse? I'm asking you to tell me."

Neither Titan Shifter answered him.

"Confinement in internment camp zones," answered Bertolt instead, expressing a part of the reason he had done what he did before he lost his powers.

"Bertolt," went Reiner, feeling betrayed.

"Confinement? Internment camp zones? Elaborate, please." Shinji uttered.

"When Eldia lost to Marley, the ethnic cleansing began," the former Titan Shifter explained. "Eldian men, women and children were rounded up and put into isolation areas walled off from the rest of the cities occupied by Marleyans. Then they wanted the power of the Founding Titan for their own ends, the same Titan power that was removed from the wars by the royal family that inherited it and abandoned everyone to live on Paradis. They began a program that used Eldians, selecting only those most loyal to Marley and were willing to die finding and returning the Founding Titan. If you were successful, your families would be given citizenship in Marley. You'd be seen as one of their own, never having to live in the internment zones, ever again. It was…what most families of Eldian descent wanted more than anything else in existence."

Eren didn't believe in this. To think that these people he once thought as refugees of the loss of Wall Maria at the hands of the Titans, people that were affiliated to the very people he was helping to live beyond the Walls, were just a bunch of people that were brought up to attack the Walls for the Titan power he possessed…just for a shot at a better life for their families in the same dwelling with the people that hated them. There was no way he'd believe this, even in Hell.

"So, it's propaganda and promises that the Marleyans use on you?" Shinji asked Bertolt. "Exploitation and manipulation? Enslavement and genocide? Quid pro quo?"

"Quid pro quo?" Levi questioned, not understanding that saying.

"It's a way of saying 'something for something' or 'this for that'," the Eva pilot explained. "If what Mr. Hoover says is try, then it's like a double-edged sword of sorts for any of them. They swear their loyalty to the Marleyans, give up their lives to face potential danger from the assumed enemies within the Walls, retrieve the Founding Titan power for them, and their reward is life without limitations due to discrimination. They risk their lives just to give their families a better one, regardless of whether or not they themselves die in the process."

"But…none of you even know if they will even honor their end if you were successful," said Armin. "If they hate you that much, they could go and renege."

"Renege?" Reiner questioned.

"Lie to you, even though they gave their word, promised you what you sacrificed for in exchange for your services."

"Or they could've done worse than that," went Eren, imagining what would have been worse.

"What is worse than lying to them, Mr. Yeager?" Shinji asked him.

"These Marleyans could've killed their families," he answered. "There's no guarantee that they'd be left alone when they got the power of the Titans and attacked the Walls."

There was a long silence before Shinji spoke through the speakers again.

"We've yet to see them…and you already assume that they would kill their families while they're here, far from what was home for them?" He asked him.

Shinji suspected this stemmed from the fact that his father had murdered a family before and it still weighed heavily on him.

"I don't know how much of any of the history of my world can relate or echo what has happened here," said Shinji, "but ethnic cleansing among the worst acts of war and terrorism in existence."

"Punishable by death?" Levi asked.

"In extreme cases."

"But…you don't think we should kill these two, don't you, Shinji?" Hange asked. "Even after all they've done?"

"Not in so many words. Although they were the cause of death for many lives five years ago, it must've been Marley that made the plan to attack the Walls for the would-be prize that was the Founding Titan…and these two were just among those that followed the orders in exchange for acceptance from some people that despised them. It would be easier to just relieve them of their Titan powers and keep them in custody…and then pay these Marleyans a visit to see what they've done over the years."

"Wouldn't you be killing them all the same?" Bertolt questioned.

"Not if the Titans that bite into them only do so to ingest their spinal fluid," went Armin. "It's unnecessary to devour them."

"But I wasn't bitten into by anyone," Bertolt expressed what happened to himself, "and I still lost my power, regardless."

"We'll find a way to deal with this without the need to kill them," said Shinji; he believed there was a way to deal with this situation that didn't need an execution. _We may already have a way!_

-x-

It was frightening to see it happen at first, but NERV was surprised to see the space shuttle emerge from the ground…and a large container that held some precious cargo.

Kaji was among those that were so surprised by what Asuka had managed to take from the other world that he lost control of his bowels at the very mention of the word 'Titan'.

Repair and replenishment work was put into effect while Asuka was being given her new assignment and the two Titans and Titan Serums were put into research and development as they were sent to NERV HQ back in Japan.

-x-

"…The Dark Titan spinal fluid," said Armin to Shinji later that day after the Eva pilot vacated the Entry Plug. "You think Reiner and Annie will lose their Titan powers if they ingest it?"

"It's only a possibility," Shinji stated his suggestion. "So far, mindless Titans return to human form when they ingested the Dark Titan's spinal fluid in her arms and legs. It might be possible for a Titan Shifter to experience the same thing, even in human form already."

"But…even if it were possible, we can't trick them into drinking it. I mean, they're not stupid."

"I'm not questioning their intellect. And how can they be tricked into drinking something that could remove their powers if they can't taste it? It wouldn't even be like we're trying to poison them. That would be trying to kill them. We're just trying to mitigate the levels of danger they could cause if they try something that puts people in danger."

"Mitigate?"

"I'm sorry. It means to reduce, to lessen of something."

This suggestion was also due to the fact that they still had the last Dark Titan body that Kaede produced in her most recent transformation…and the discovery that the residual spinal fluid it possessed actually took longer to evaporate because the body didn't degenerate or evaporate like regular Titan bodies did. If anything from recent discoveries and studies, the degeneration of the Dark Titan bodies produced by Kaede actually took longer to achieve, which meant the Survey Corps had a decent supply of Titan spinal fluid to run tests on and use against future Titan threats.

"I guess we can put it in their drinks to mask the taste," Armin suggested. "I just hope you're right about this, Shinji."

"I just hope I'm right about every idea I get when it comes to what we're doing. Between Eldia and Marley, I'd rather side with the people that deserve to be free from tyranny and oppression, and that's the Eldians. The more I think about it, these Marleyans sound similar to a race of people in my world called Germans, who, under a fascist dictatorship, started a war with the other nations of the world. They were people that, despite decades afterward when the war ended, led to the girl I mentioned was the pilot of the red Eva."

"They were that bad?"

"I honestly don't know. I just know that Asuka was hard to deal with, always putting me down, no matter what I did, even just breathing. As much as I'm able to admit to disliking her now, even to the point of not wanting to see her again for as long as I might live, I'm not sure I have the will to be the one to execute her if she crosses the line any further than she already has."

Armin noticed how Shinji's right hand clenched and unclenched, as though he were deeply conflicted with the idea of actually killing someone, no matter who they were and how much they may have deserved that fate. He didn't blame him for feeling this way; none of the Survey Corps ever thought they had to deal with the possibility of killing anybody beyond the Titans. And personally, he couldn't imagine their hope from the sky killing anyone due to him seeming like a gentle soul caught up in one violent mess after another.

"I'll be honest with you, Shinji," he told him. "You don't seem like you're able to kill anyone, no matter who they are…and you shouldn't kill anyone, either. You're the hope from the sky. No offense."

"None taken. It's nice to be something better than one that's violent most of the time."

-x-

"…So long as they're deprived of sunlight, they're useless," Asuka informed Ritsuko over the phone as she memorized her new orders.

She couldn't believe her orders came from Gendo, who still maintained that Unit-01 must be recaptured at all costs, but the new assignment seemed so…beneath herself. Instead of a direct assault towards the Third Child, she was to kidnap this girl the boy had addressed as Kaede. As far as the commander told her, the girl held a soft spot in the Third Child's heart, and if they took her and brought her here, he'd have no choice but to come back for her, which meant Unit-01 would be brought back, as well.

 _So that idiot found a girlfriend over there?_ She thought as she threw her orders into the garbage bin beside her. _Who does he think he is?! Who would want anything to do with that spineless coward?! Still, a girl that can turn into one of those Titans_ _…_ _If she wanted to, she could take the world and all it's worth_ _…_ _and then some._

-x-

"…Kaede?" Shinji gasped, seeing her on the carrier as he was about to get off and head for her building to see her again. "What are you doing here?"

"I…came to see you," she expressed. "I saw the petite boy, Armin, and he told me where you were."

"Yeah, well…there's nothing really wrong with being skinny. There are really some things only the little people can do. Why come here to see me?"

"It's about what happened earlier today…after you told me what you found out about people able to turn into Titans. I may have crossed a line I shouldn't have with you…and I'm sorry."

But the truth of it was…that Shinji wasn't sorry that it happened. It was the first kiss that actually meant something to him…and not just his first kiss from a stranger here in this world.

"The truth is…and even my parents think there's something going on between us…so I should probably ask before I press this any further. Shinji Ikari…despite my status as a Titan Shifter…and my identity as the so-called Dark Titan…do I have a shot with you?" Kaede questioned him.

"A…a shot with me?" Shinji reacted, confused. "What do you mean, Kaede?"

"I mean…would you like to be…my boyfriend…is what I'm saying," she explained.

To be continued…


	16. Love and War

Creation began on 06-10-17

Creation ended on 07-19-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: Love and War

Misato couldn't believe she was standing in front of a heavily-secured Titan of fifteen meters. The creepiest thing of it wasn't that it was a giant, nude man with no external genitalia, making it look like a type of doll without the clothing, but the fact that it looked a lot like the Suzuhara boy. She thought it was a good thing the Titan was secured within the deepest bowels of NERV HQ.

"Hard to believe," she heard Hyuga say.

"Insane," added Shigeru.

"It looks just like us," went Maya, bothered by the way it looked at them, like it could still hurt them, "but it's not like us, is it?"

"That's what we're going to find out, eventually," said Ritsuko.

"Rrrraaugh!" The Titan roared at them for the eighth time, unable to move due to the so-called anti-Angel defense system restraining the Titan with heavy metal cables. "Rrrrraurgh!"

"Every time it does that," Misato uttered, "it gives me the creeps to no end."

"Maybe Shinji was right," went Hyuga. "Maybe it was a mistake to try and obtain any of them. I know we have two of them, but this one's fierce enough. It's like looking at a man that hates everyone to the very bone."

Misato didn't fault him for this. How could she? Even she was starting to think that it was a mistake to have these Titans here…even if it was the sake of powering the Evas. She just felt that this was no way to obtain power, even if it seemed the most beneficial.

-x-

Gendo was impressed by the sight of the vials of Titan Serum displayed on his desk. To think that the key to creating Titans was so simple as an injection with a serum that these strangers gave them when they asked for it? Now, all he needed were test subjects to use it on and discover how to create it for future use. His son had thought he could keep the power of the Titans away from NERV, only to fail miserably and be beaten by a greater authority.

 _Foolish boy,_ he thought, holding up one of the vials, with a language written on it that was eerily similar to that of the Japanese language, reading it to find that the vial's contents were capable of turning people into Titans of the strongest degree. _You thought you could keep me away from this power we now possess? You disappoint me immensely. And soon, you will pay for running away._

-x-

On the far side of the carrier, hidden behind the island section, Shinji and Kaede had ample privacy to resume their conversation. It was mainly Shinji that was trying to comprehend what he had been asked earlier by the girl…and his heart was still trying to find a steady rhythm after being asked the question the girl had uttered.

"Kaede," he spoke, hoping he understood where she was coming from with her question, "surely, I'm not the type of guy you'd want to…be with."

"Why would I need to have a type? The truth is, I've stayed away from men ever since Wall Maria fell, after what that man did to me, fearing that if I ended up having children of my own someday, they'd be monsters, just like the Titans. You took away that fear. And before I even got to know you, hearing that it was you that made it possible for us all to take back Wall Maria, I just wanted to see the young man that gave hope back to the people, willing to put up being surrounded by many men if it meant getting a glimpse of you. Do I really need a type of man to like?" She asked him. "Not every girl wants someone to be tough…or smarter than others…or something of the sort. Not even successful in a good career or because of who their parents are or were. I don't even care if you think you have nothing without the Eva. So…do I have a shot at you…or don't I?"

It sounded like Kaede really didn't have a preference in men if she meant all of that. She just wanted to know if she had a chance with Shinji romantically.

A long time ago, after being abandoned by his father, Shinji lacked any dreams or ambitions, never aspiring to any career or profession. And yet, he was drafted into a life of violence at NERV by his father…and then found himself caught up in a life-or-death struggle between people and giant man-eaters of unknown origin until a deeper revelation revealed that it was a war between two nations that dominated the world he was stranded in. Even then, he chose to side with the Eldians he had met when he arrived here because they had been isolated behind giant walls to protect themselves when they thought they were the last of the human race, nothing more than a clever deception because of the centuries of being unable to venture past the Walls in fear of the Titans…instead of siding with the Marleyans and their propaganda that involved using the Eldians in their possession as slaves to obtain the Founding Titan's power. He still had a desire for a life after this was all over, free of the Eva, somewhere out there where he could do whatever he wanted with his life because he felt he had no way to return home…even when one such way involved abandoning the Eldians, the people that needed his help…and…those he felt connected to here.

"Do you…really not care about what kind of life I may have without the Eva?" He asked her, wanting to know just important he was without the Eva interfering with his identity.

"The Eva is really just a tool," she told him. "It's not the Eva that gives anyone hope. It's the young man that chose to use it to give hope to the people that holds the real hope for everyone. Even if there was someone else that could use it to continue that drive, I'd still want to be the one that gave me back the possibilities of my future, and that's you. You can be…whatever you want to be…and I'll still want to be with you."

Shinji looked down at his left hand, closing it into a loose fist…and then back up at Kaede.

"Then…all I can ask you is…do I have a shot with you?" He asked her.

"Yeah," she answered him. "You have a shot with me."

"Then…you have a shot with me."

She hugged him closely. It felt really good.

Shinji raised his arms and held her shoulders. He actually had a girlfriend now. There was no other feeling like this in his life. It felt…really good to his heart.

"I should let you know," he told her. "I have absolutely no experience with this sort of relationship."

"It's okay," she responded. "I don't have any, either."

-x-

"You actually think he has a girlfriend over there, Asuka?" Kaji asked as the redhead got set to go back to the world of the Titans.

"He does, and that's wrong!" Asuka told him.

"Jealous?"

"Hardly! Why would any girl want anything to do with him? He's spineless, he can't do anything right, he tried to keep NERV from obtaining the Titans. He's even turned his back on us. If anything, this only proves how it was a mistake right from the start to put him in the Eva! And who told him that it was alright for him to find a girlfriend over there in a world he doesn't even belong in? If I can't have a boyfriend, he can't have a girlfriend!"

To Kaji, that sounded a lot like jealousy…and he wasn't even sure that Shinji had found a romantic interest in this other world. He had seen the small footage of the girl emerging from the large Titan's body, but Shinji's voice uttering what they had assumed was the girl's name left much to be ascertained in its entirety.

"The only good thing about going back is that we don't need to gather any more Titans for the time being," Asuka stated, "meaning this is simply just a minor pickup."

But there was nothing in the girl's orders from Commander Ikari to indicate that this was just a simple pickup. Not when it was able to be viewed, perceived, as nothing more than an unjustifiable abduction.

-x-

"What is this?" Reiner asked the Survey Corps member that served him and Annie their meal, holding up a plastic utensil in his left hand.

"It's called a spork," the guy answered. "This city's got dozens of these things. Simple relics of the past we're taking back to the present."

"And you thank your so-called hope from the sky for them?" Annie asked him, being watched carefully by Mikasa as she ate her meal.

"The future's ours because of him," the guy explained. "The civilians, they admire the guy. Half my friends wonder if he has other abilities he has yet to demonstrate that can end this nightmare for good, and the other half want to know what his plans are for when he gets older. Don't either of you have any plans for when you get older…or do your orders from this Marleyan government are all that matter to you, not your future?"

Annie didn't answer…and just picked up her cup of sweet tea; it was rumored by Sasha that the young woman that could turn into the Female Titan had a taste for sweets.

-x-

 _Necessary Deception_

Kaede only knew about this because Shinji told her, deciding not to keep secrets from her, and that because she, too, was now a harbinger of hope for the people because of her power…and it was quite disturbing to some of the Survey Corps members that had been present, particularly Eren, Mikasa and Armin, how the girl was taking the idea very well.

" _If my Dark Titan spinal fluid restores a mindless Titan back to human form,"_ she stated, unsure about the idea actually bearing results desired, _"then it could remove the power of a Titan Shifter. I don't know for sure."_

" _Still, it's only because Shinji suggested it,"_ said Armin to them, _"and we don't know for certain if we can take their powers away."_

" _The Eva was somehow able to take away Bertolt's power when we thought Shinji had killed him,"_ added Eren, which made Shinji shudder at the thought of actually murdering someone with a conscious. _"But we didn't have any means to understand what happened, exactly."_

That's when Kaede asked, _"The day the Colossal… I mean, Mr. Hoover was defeated, was that around the same time Shinji and his Eva fell from the sky?"_

" _That's right,"_ Mikasa answered. _"Why?"_

" _This is probably something else I can pin on Grandfather, but it might explain why that day I went and became the Dark Titan again after so long, it was much bigger than I had expected it to be."_

" _Bigger?"_ Shinji asked; he had never seen her Titan's original stature before that day in the city.

" _It was over five years ago,"_ Armin explained. _"When Wall Maria fell and Shiganshina was invaded. The Titan that…"_

Shinji had only the barest of information regarding that day. What he did understand was that it was the day the Dark Titan was encountered…and the same day that Eren almost watched his mother get killed by a Titan.

" _It's okay, Armin,"_ said Eren to him. _"It doesn't hurt as much, anymore."_

" _The Titan that nearly killed Eren's mother was attacked and killed by the Dark Titan,"_ Armin resumed. _"It was almost eighteen meters in height. Far bigger than the regular Titans."_

" _I was that big in the beginning?"_ Kaede asked. _"When I changed for the second time, my intention was still to help Shinji, but I didn't expect my Titan form to be massive. When Mr. Hoover was defeated, I might've obtained his power as a consequence."_

This suspicion was really hard to comprehend because it seemed impossible, even though the knowledge they had discovered over the short amount of time was also just as impossible. Even if a Titan Shifter wasn't devoured and could live to a ripe age and die of natural causes, the power of the Titan would, as they had discovered, just relocate itself into an Eldian child, regardless of time, space and background, and then they'd have the power awaken in their possession and be drafted into the conflict by Marley. But if such a thing was possible, then it meant that Kaede was now similar to Eren in the fact that they had two different Titans in their possession…though the second Titan she possessed was one of the nine Titans the Marleyans no longer possessed.

" _Excluding the steam generation used in ways different from the other Titans,"_ said Hange, _"all that makes the Colossal Titan stand out from the other Titans…is its size. Its size, however, makes it a slow target, difficult for it to either attack or defend itself."_

" _Lesser Titans can move quicker than the bigger ones,"_ said Shinji, but then had to reiterate and correct himself. _"Lesser Titans that are able to move quicker, that is."_

" _But…how do you know for sure that you got the power of the Colossal and it's not just a side-effect of having spent the last few years without a triggered transformation?"_ Armin questioned her.

" _I don't,"_ she answered him. _"Just a feeling. Nothing more than a feeling."_

" _Still,"_ went Shinji, _"if Marley doesn't have the Armored or Female Titans at their disposal, they'll be reduced to only four of the nine Titans that they do have."_

Even though it was only a theoretical possibility, they really had nothing to lose by trying this attempt. But if it failed, then they had nothing to really gain, either. It was in the hands of fate to use Kaede's Titan power to deal a crippling blow to the enemy by removing two more threats to the Eldian people that lived within the Walls from the Marleyans that would exploit them.

-x-

As Reiner drank his cup of sweet tea, Mikasa hoped that he and Annie couldn't taste the Dark Titan spinal fluid that had been mixed in with the tea to mask its potential taste.

Annie put her cup down and resumed eating her sandwich.

"Shift change, you two," said one of two older female corps members as they showed up in the makeshift cell. "New orders from Captain Erwin."

The man left, but Mikasa stayed behind a moment longer to watch the two Titan Shifters.

"Don't take your eyes off them," she told the women as she left. "Especially her."

-x-

"…It doesn't seem like they noticed," went Shinji to Levi and Erwin as they watched the two Titan Shifters through the surveillance camera system in a different room as they consumed the spiked beverages he hoped would strip them of their powers.

"For the time being, we'll keep watch over them," said Erwin to the Eva pilot, "but for now, you and Ms. Sogen should head to the Walls."

In his plugsuit, the boy nodded and left the room to get to his Eva to respond to a message of smoke signals from the Walls.

The plan of attack was simply to reduce the Titans that were once the foundation of the wall that was destroyed by Asuka and Unit-02, returning them to humanity. And Kaede was getting into the idea of being a harbinger of hope for the people, not a monster as she had believed herself to be.

-x-

All Gendo had to do was tempt SEELE with the footage of one of the two Titans NERV currently had to get them to sign off on the new operation to acquire the girl they discovered could turn into a Titan that was of similar height to an Evangelion. The research into the Titan Serums was underway, with the searching for volunteers to risk their own lives as guinea pigs to further their Eva research within the realm of plausibility. Now if they had a person able to turn into one at will (and with an emotional attachment to the Third Child), they'd be another step closer to being all the more stronger against the Angels.

" _Tread with caution, Ikari,"_ SEELE 01 had told him. _"For all you know, what was viewed in the footage may have only been a one-time thing. And if it isn't, you don't know how these people will react to your intention to take this girl from them. They may take offense."_

Still, if NERV was to regain Unit-01, this was a risk they had to take. And Gendo was willing to have as many of these people from the other world slaughtered if it meant regaining Unit-01 and its Titan-fueled power.

-x-

"…I don't believe this," said Shinji as he, Kaede and a handful of the Survey Corps' veteran members made it to Wall Maria and saw it missing a massive portion of its structure. "Asuka, you're going to be the death of people here if I find out they were because of you."

With everyone riding atop the Eva, they held on as it ran across the expanse of land to reach Wall Rose.

"I can't believe an Eva was able to decimate that much of the wall," said a female member beside Kaede as she held onto Unit-01's neck. "And the worst part is that they did so on purpose."

"Titans!" They heard Shinji's voice coming from the Eva, and they saw several Titans, similar to the Colossal in appearance, but more muscly and a few meters smaller. "There's gotta be at least over fifty of them."

 _Fifty Titans?_ Kaede thought, terrified to see that this Asuka girl that Shinji mentioned had intentionally unleashed so many Titans from the wall because Shinji chose not to return to their world with the Eva he controlled or a number of Titans for their own purposes. _And based on the layout of the Walls, they must be made of tens of thousands of Titans. Tens of thousands of Eldian lives cut off from the world. But…if she was able to destroy that much of Wall Maria…then she was likely able to get a few of the Titans for the people she serves, too._

"Shinji, what if the red behemoth was able to take a few of the Titans that made up the wall?" A male member of the group asked him.

"That's what I'm afraid of her doing," he responded as they were within attacking range of the Titans that were just standing in front of Wall Rose. "What the… They're not doing anything."

This was something that Kaede and the veterans took notice of, as well. The Titans just stood in front of the wall. There wasn't a single one that made any attempt to attack it or any of the people that were on it as they fired smoke flares to get the Eva and the corps members' attention.

"Why don't they do anything?" One of the men, Hannes, questioned. "There's people right there in front of them."

"Maybe they can't," Kaede suggested. "Maybe they're still too weak from being deprived of sunlight for so long. They were recently released by the red Eva a few hours ago, so it's possible they only got a little sunlight just to move. When the sun returns, they'll replenish their energy and then attack."

"Then we need to stop them before that happens. Are you ready, Ms. Sogen?" Another male member asked the girl.

Kaede looked over the Eva and at the ground, shuddering at the height they were at; as much as she thought about it, she wasn't ready to try jumping off anything and turning into the Dark Titan in that fashion, even if she was willing to put her power to good use for her people and their ancestors.

"Can I please do this on the ground?" She asked them, and Shinji brought up Unit-01's left hand for her. "Thank you."

She hopped on and was set down to the ground as Unit-01 took a few steps back; Titan transformations tended to invite potential harm to anyone that was within a certain radius of the people that could trigger them.

"You hungry for your humanity, you big uglies?" She questioned them. "Come eat some of this!"

She took out a small knife and cut into her right wrist, her goal that of letting the Titans bit her arms and legs to ingest her spinal fluid and be restored to human form.

BOOM! Her transformation was triggered, unleashing a lot of heat and steam as she generated the mass of her Titan form.

When it was completed, Shinji and the veterans saw a great change in the Dark Titan that was unexpected and beyond what was imagined. While still being one-hundred meters in height and still dark in its coloration, the Dark Titan now sported a more feminine physique, similar to the Female Titan, and its torso area seemed thickened, as if covered in armor plating, reaching up to its neck.

"My God," gasped several of the veterans.

 _She has their powers now,_ thought Shinji in realization. _The power of the Female and Armored Titans._

The Dark Titan slowly examined itself before giving off an intimidating roar towards the other Titans.

Suddenly, the Titans turned away from the wall and at it…and gave into their impulse to attack and feed off it to sustain themselves. They ran as fast as their forms would allow them, and tackled the Dark Titan to the ground, biting into its arms and legs, unable to break the skin on its torso due to the strange, dense flesh that covered it.

Within Unit-01, Shinji watched with such a fearful expression that he worried that Kaede would get hurt because of the large number of Titans that were trying to eat her. Even if she now had armor up to her nape to provide her with a degree of protection against being eaten, it didn't erase his concern for her safety; as the boyfriend, he had to be concerned for her safety.

"Grrrraurgh!" Some of the Titans shrieked as they moved away from the Dark Titan's legs, grabbing at their throats as they began to give off steam and evaporate.

"It's working!" Hannes shouted, seeing other Titans that bit into the Dark Titan move away from it as they gave off steam.

As they fell, more Titans climbed over the rest, always trying to chew their way through to the dark one's accessible flesh. None of them were ever the wiser as to what they would get for trying to eat it. They simply attacked, ate as much as they before succumbing to the spinal fluid they unknowingly ingested, and backed away as they choked and evaporated, letting the others have their turn on its regenerating flesh.

Within the confines of the armored nape, Kaede could only watch and wait for these Titans' numbers to dwindle down as they were given back their lives and future. She saw four of them tear off her left arm at the shoulder joint…but felt no pain or experienced blood loss; only the Dark Titan body was getting punished by these mindless cannibals, not the young woman that possessed the power to set them free. None of them could get through the plating of bone that covered her form.

"Grraurgh!" The ones feasting on the severed limb choked on the spinal fluid in it as they pulled away and fell to the ground, evaporating. "Graugh!"

 _Just let them feast until they're all gone,_ she thought as the severed arm began to regenerate as more mindless Titans tried to eat away at her form. _If it gets bad, I signal to Shinji, and he comes to my aid with the others, harming instead of killing._

So far, maybe more that forty of the Titans had feasted upon the Dark Titan, leaving the rest gathering for their final feast. None of them exhibited any increase in intelligence from watching the fallen members evaporate, only able to follow their most simple impulse to feed.

-x-

The larger Titan NERV HQ possessed was isolated to a chamber in Terminal Dogma, deprived of sunlight, completely immobile. Several armed guards stood in front of the humanoid, but it did nothing to indicate that it knew they were there. So far, the order was to keep it away from sunlight and run similar tests to it as they were with the fifteen-meter Titan, seeing that one of their remarkable qualities was their ability to regenerate. But the regeneration seemed hindered by the lack of sunlight, since it took eight hours for the large one to regrow its left arm when it was blown off by a small charge, making Dr. Akagi suspect that sunlight played a vital role in their physical activity.

"If people that can turn into these things at will, will they possess the same ability to regenerate?" Ritsuko wondered, getting the MAGI ready to record an X-ray of the Titans. "Such an ability would be useful if it could be applied to all humans."

-x-

Thirty minutes. That's how long it took to take out all the Titans from the destroyed section of Wall Maria with the Dark Titan spinal fluid. And the current population of Eldian people from within the Walls were increased by eighty-seven more men and women. It was a sight that reminded the Survey Corps and Shinji how invaluable this new form of hope was that freed people from the endless nightmare of being a Titan without free will.

Kaede, once her Titan body had served its purpose, emerged from the evaporating carcass, unscathed and feeling relieved that the Titans were gone for the time being.

"…Ugh…what happened?" One of the men questioned as they stood up where they fell as Titans.

"You've been set free from a curse that's been long overdue to happen," she told him.

"Wha…what is that giant, purple giant?" A woman asked.

"A friend."

The only thing they all had to deal with now was that the people restored to normal were as bare as the day they drew their first breath, something that Shinji, even in the plug, was bothered by and turned away to spare himself the embarrassment of being around them.

It would be a while before he could have Unit-01 consume the remains of the Dark Titan to put more power in the Eva's internal battery.

-x-

"…If the Marleyans find out that you turned on them, they'll kill you, Bertolt," Reiner said to the former Colossal Titan from within his makeshift cell.

"I still have nightmares of attacking the people of Shiganshina from five years ago, you two," Bertolt responded. "That and Trost are enough on my conscience."

"They are the enemy," went Annie in her makeshift cell. "They brought their deaths upon themselves."

"No, we did when we attacked them. They never knew anything about the world outside the Walls. As crazy as it seems, I'm grateful that I lost the Colossal Titan to them. I'm grateful that Marley lost the Colossal. Ever since that day I attacked Wall Rose for the second time, the same time that purple giant appeared, all the way up to the present, I've begun to actually doubt the Marleyans and whatever promise they made to my parents years ago. And while it's true that neither side is right in what was done long ago, neither side is wrong for what was done, either. Both are wrong for the wars, the fighting over things, the ethnic cleansing and Titan exploitation. Yet that young man who has become the Eldians' hope from the sky… Even though I've not seen him, he has a simple reason for siding with the Eldians; the ones from the Walls, he views as innocent of their ancestors' crimes because they did nothing to deserve anything we did to them…just as our parents and their parents did nothing wrong to deserve what was done to them. The whole thing about how the sins of the parents shouldn't be carried by the children or something of the sort. He sees each of us, he sees people suffering from something someone else did long ago…and how we'll still paying for it all. He hasn't seen a Marleyan yet, but he knows what to expect from them; absolutely no mercy or desire to try and speak of peace between the two nations."

"Yet he's not an Eldian or a Marleyan, so why side with the losing nation that thinks they can turn this all around?" Annie asked.

"Because he saw them in danger first," Bertolt explained. "If it were the other way around, he'd probably make the same choice to aid the Marleyans if they lived behind the Walls. Before he even knew about the war, he thought the same thing as the Eldians; that they were all that was left of mankind in the whole world. Now that he knows better, he still chooses to side with them. And I want to see the war stop as soon as possible because of him. I want to see my family while I'm still alive."

Those last words made Reiner think about what he had that passed for his family. Ever since he could remember, it was just he and his mother in the internment camps…and his discovery of why his father was never around for either of them. It was the same reason why his mother sent him to join the Marleyans' warrior program for the attack on Paradis. If he became a warrior for Marley and was successful in the capture of the Founding Titan, not only would they would be accepted as citizens of Marley, but his mother could be with his father…and he'd be free of his personal stigma.

"We all want what we were drafted into this war for," he expressed.

-x-

"…You did good out there, Kaede," said Hannes to the girl that was the Dark Titan as they and the others took rest in Trost for the night with the eighty-seven people they saved.

"Thank you," she accepted.

Meanwhile, Shinji wandered around the streets of the city that was empty of its previous citizens, trying to wrap his head around the fact that he had used the Eva to relocate so many people away from the Walls. He was reminded of his brief time in Tokyo-2 before he ever encountered an Angel…and then that very brief glimpse of the blunette that piloted the one-eyed Eva. For a brief moment, he had been confused by why he saw her, but after a while, he decided to put it out of his mind, that some questions were better left unanswered. And it wasn't like he missed her or anything, but he was now in a committed relationship with Kaede…and he wanted to be with her.

"Careful, kid," he heard Hannes say to him, swinging in from around a building. "You can get lost around here."

"I try to stay close to the wall," he told him. "Sometimes, I still find it hard to believe that I cleared out an entire district."

"Eight districts, seventeen small villages and an underground city, kid. You set us free from a large cage. It's only the citizens of Wall Sina that didn't want to leave, but we can't force them."

Then, just because of the fact that he had been informed that this Rod Reiss had an illegitimate child somewhere that was being searched for, Shinji felt the need to ask, "Suppose we find Mr. Reiss' surviving kid… What will be done to them?"

"The mysterious Reiss kid? Still leading towards the being questioned and later pardoning. Still can't find them and the bastard isn't talking. Why?"

"Just wishful thinking."

"Ever since I found out what you were capable of, a lot of that has been going on. Wishful thinking. Just praying, hoping that the Titans are all gone."

"As long as the Walls still stand and there are people that exploit the ancient power discovered long ago, the Titans will still be around. But so long as we can fight them and have the methods we now have to keep them in check, we can still have a future beyond the Walls."

"Shinji!" They heard Kaede as she ran over to where they were, carrying two small packages with her.

"Hey, Kaede," he greeted her.

"You cannot let me eat these rations by myself, even if they aren't as awful as I heard they used to be."

"I rarely ate them, but they aren't bad."

"Honestly, Shinji, you cook better food."

"Oh, really?" Hannes questioned. "You cook?"

"Well, when you used to live with a woman that was your commanding officer who couldn't cook even to save her own life, you have to adapt to survive," Shinji expressed. "Though, in all honesty, I learned to cook from an early age."

"Your parents must be proud of your skill."

Kaede turned her head away to spare Shinji's feelings regarding his father.

"I really wouldn't know for sure," Shinji told Hannes. "My mother died when I was little and my father is completely indifferent about me. I don't think he truly cares about me. He just wants back the Eva and whatever Titans he can get from here."

"But…there's a possibility that these people you used to be in league with before you ended up here have already obtained some Titans."

"And that's what makes me afraid for the innocent people back on my world. Just because Titans can't spread like a plague doesn't mean they're not dangerous if they got loose. If we didn't have the means to restore them back to human form, the only good Titan is one that is down and out for the count. Even if NERV knew how to kill them, I doubt they'd care much for such a way to stop them."

"Then…the innocent people there would be condemned only because of what that agency you turned rogue on have chosen," said Kaede, "not because of the Titans they took."

She then handed him his field ration; she had to be honest, before she became involved in this all, her tastes were more directed towards the simple cuisine that regular citizens were accustomed to, not these crummy scraps that the Survey Corps had to make do with. While she was getting used to them, she prayed for the day where they wouldn't need to rely on these, anymore.

"Hmm?" She went, seeing someone across the street from them.

"Kaede?" Shinji asked, and the person she saw was no longer there. "What's wrong?"

"I thought I… I thought I saw one of the girls you mentioned working with over there across the street," she explained, pointing to where she saw the girl. "She had blue hair."

"Ayanami?" He spoke; if this were true, then he wasn't the only one that saw a strange person before they ever met in person.

But he was hoping that nothing happened to result in Ayanami coming to this world like Asuka had. Dealing with the redhead was enough. To have to deal with both girls was just adding more to his plate than he could manage…and it was hard to cross the line he hoped not to cross with Asuka.

"Hey," went Kaede, taking a bite out of her rations, "after this, we should probably deal with that other guy from before. The one they're calling the Beast Titan."

The Beast Titan to the people, but to the select few, including Shinji himself, the man was revealed to be none other than a piece of a past Eren knew not of his father: Zeke Yeager, the firstborn son of Grisha Yeager…and Eren's half-brother.

"Yeah," agreed Hannes to her suggestion. "He's the only one left that we know of with Titan powers that's out to get us."

 _And now we have a secret weapon to negate him,_ thought Shinji, taking a bite out of his rations.

-x-

"…Do you think that Shinji has a girlfriend over there, Katsuragi?" Kaji asked Misato as they saw the plane that would be transporting Asuka back to Nevada getting prepared for takeoff.

"All we saw was a girl emerging from the nape of one of those giants and hearing Shinji say what we're just assuming is the girl's name," Misato responded. "If he does, however, it would help to explain any further reason to why he chose not to return here or why he didn't want us to have any of those giants, which I'm seeing as nothing more than an outright mistake on NERV's part. The smaller one tried to eat one of the scientists last night."

"Still, it would be interesting gossip if he did have one. You'd think he go for Rei or Asuka."

"You wish he would go for Asuka, but after everything that happened over there when we were trying to get him to come back willingly…or as willingly comes when Commander Ikari tries to use force to regain Unit-01, it's unlikely that Shinji will simply surrender himself or the Eva and leave these people that probably look up to him as some sort of hero or something."

Ring! Her cell phone rang, and she answered it.

"Katsuragi," she spoke. "What did you say?!"

-x-

Gendo was not impressed at all. There was no change in the Titans NERV had or contamination in the Titan Serums they had. It was something much worse than what they had anticipated.

An Angel was spotted in Nevada…but it went through the portal to the other world instead of trying to come to Tokyo-3.

 _Why?_ He wondered. _Why would an Angel choose not to come here in favor of some other world where there aren't any Angels or Adam? It couldn't possibly be because of Unit-01._

Whatever the reason, Gendo needed to know what had prompted the Angel to deviate from what the Dead Sea Scrolls had ascertained.

-x-

Shinji awoke from a short rest and realized that he was alone in the small room he took with Kaede in the Trost District of Wall Rose. It was the only one that had two beds; despite their pairing, they weren't going to get entangled to that degree just yet.

"Kaede?" He called out to her, but got no answer from her. "Kaede?"

He got up and looked around the small house for her. Stepping into the kitchen area, he saw her at the table, looking like she had experienced something terrible.

"Kaede?" He asked again, and she looked up at him.

"Oh, Shinji," she responded. "I didn't hear you come in."

"What's wrong, Kaede?"

"Just a nightmare…of things I had forgotten…and wish not to remember."

He sat beside her at the table and asked, "What did you dream about?"

"That man again. My step-grandfather. I heard him saying more of what he told me that night he turned me into a Titan Shifter. He kept spouting things like 'Yeager', 'hunter', 'Titan' and 'god-like'. The last thing I saw before I woke up was him shooting himself with a needle in his right arm." She explained the details of her nightmare. "I must've been half-dazed."

Shinji then noticed how Kaede held her arms close to her chest; it was the way she caressed her exposed skin, reminding him that her step-grandfather had injected her arms and legs with some variation of a Titan Serum, implying that her nightmare wasn't really a figment of her imagination.

"Kaede," he spoke, "did it feel like a nightmare? I mean, did it feel like it was actually happening to you? I'm noticing the way you're caressing your arms; people hold certain areas on their bodies where they were…harmed. They call it phantom pain."

Kaede thought about it, and sighed. In her nightmare, it felt like her step-grandfather was injecting her all over again. Sometimes, she woke up in the dead of night with pain in her arms and legs, exactly where the needles punctured her. And then, there was that expression the man made as she saw him injecting himself with a needle, some…sickening, depraved expression.

"Yes, Shinji," she answered him. "Yes, it did feel like it was really happening to me. Why?"

"It's possible that it wasn't a dream…but the rest of your memory of what happened to you that day. Sometimes, when people want to forget about something that they can't face or bring up because of some emotional aspect to it, they just…repress it, carpartmentalize in some area of their subconscious to bury it as best they can."

"Then I guess I didn't do that enough. As much as I try to see this power as an aid to the people's salvation and freedom from the Walls and now their freedom from isolation on an island from these Marleyans…I can't stop feeling so angry at what he did to me…and…"

She sighed and placed her hands on the table.

"What is it, Kaede?" He asked, wanting to know the extent of her feelings toward this man. "I want to know, whatever it is."

"Ever since the day Wall Maria fell, I've wanted to believe that he died…but…I can't bring myself to believe in such a want. What if he isn't dead?"

Shinji couldn't find a right answer for her. Even though he'd never even seen so much as a picture of the man that hurt his girlfriend, these mentions of the kind of man he was made him suspect that if given the chance to save himself at the expense of his family, the guy would choose the path of self-preservation instead of accepting his fate. And if, by some act of some sort of deity or dark act of fate, he was very much alive instead of dead, Shinji could only see him as a monster, not as a person, and he had harmed the lives of three people that were supposed to matter.

"If he's not dead, how could he possibly survive out there in Titan territory with only one leg?" He reminded her that he was physically handicapped and people with physical handicaps couldn't get very far in dangerous places.

"Suppose he found a way? What if…there was some personal reason for why he turned me into Titan Shifter. What if…it wasn't to help anyone…but to help himself?" Kaede suggested.

It wouldn't be within the realm of deniability for Shinji to suspect that. Because of the aftermath of Second Impact (even before then), there were dozens of people that suffered and did many things, most of which were either sick and depraved to try their best to save only themselves. Having very little and wanting more when terrible things happen to take away from one's life brings out unforeseen changes in their character, doing whatever it took to survive.

"Shinji… People have done such things in your world, too, haven't they?" She asked him.

"Yeah," he answered her. "It wouldn't be too farfetched, Kaede. He dabbled in something beyond him, let his curiosity drive his actions, maybe thinking he found something that could be used to his benefit, but didn't know what could happen to him if he tried it on himself, so he looks to someone else that could be used to see if it was worth trying."

"You mean…oh, what's that saying that isn't 'bait'?"

"Guinea pig, Kaede. You really think he used you as a guinea pig to see if his method to turning people into Titan Shifters was able to help himself?"

"I can't think of any other reason for why he would go to such extremes."

Neither could Shinji, for that matter. If this were the case, then not only was it selfish, but cruel and endangering to Kaede.

 _Don't even try to defend the guy, Shinji,_ his mind's sense of morality argued with him. _If he did what he did just to save himself, then there was no guarantee that his method would even pan out. There was no guarantee that you would even be here with Kaede, that she would even be here. And you have to own up to the possibility of a drawback, since there's no guarantee that she doesn't even have a thirteen-year life sentence like the previous Titan Shifters._

But Shinji shook his head to clear his mind of such a thought. There was no way he would ever accept such a possibility. Not when she had saw in him, not the Eva, such hope for a future where she could be free and with someone like him…or anyone, for that matter. He just couldn't bring himself to believe in any negatives beyond what had been done to Kaede…and wouldn't bring himself to believe in such based on some form of retroactive fright.

"Shinji?" Kaede asked.

"Sorry," he apologized to her. "Bad thoughts that don't need to be in my head."

"My fault."

"No, just random thinking."

"Shinji?"

"Hmm?"

"Again, thank you for all that you've done since you fell from the sky."

"I'm glad that I met you that night in Shiganshina when I helped the Survey Corps take back Wall Maria after being told of the situation you were all in."

"Please, Shinji…kiss me."

He leaned over to her…and kissed her.

-x-

There was a lot of land on the continent, miles away from the large island that played host to the abomination that was somehow stronger than anticipated. If it went up against it now, it was guaranteed to lose more than its own life. That's why it was best to play it safe, observing other factions of this enemy that weren't an obstacle to its objective, which wasn't here. But a power far greater than what it had originally sensed caught its attention.

It was unlike the power that was nothing more than a perversion of the power its enemies exploited. It felt like its enemies, but without the power of its creator, substituted with the power of the planet itself.

-x-

"…I don't think I've ever seen such sight from atop the Walls, Shinji," said Kaede to her boyfriend as they watched the sunrise.

"It's really beautiful to watch the sunrise from anywhere," Shinji confessed, "but I've never really enjoyed such with anyone…anywhere."

"It's a beautiful sight from up here…or atop a roof… The tranquility, the calming breeze, the spaces and things bathed in the light. It's truly beautiful."

As they walked along Trost's portion of Wall Rose, Kaede felt better about herself with Shinji.

"We should dispose of the remaining Titan Shifters that Marley has as soon as possible, Shinji," she told him. "They might have weapons we don't possess, but if they lose their hold on the Titans, then they lose at least one of the only resources that gave them an edge."

"The only people with the power of the Titans…would be the ones with the power of the Dark Titan and Rogue Titan, whom, according to later revelations, is also called the Attack Titan."

"Attack Titan? Somehow, even if that is the real name of Mr. Eren Yeager's Titan form, it just doesn't feel right."

"That's exactly what I told Eren. It turns out that, regardless of the identity of the Titan he turns into, most of the Survey Corps refer to it as Rogue instead of Attack."

"And each of these Titans that only nine people can turn into has its own distinct identity?"

"Yes. The Nine Titans that were brought into existence after the death of the woman that discovered the power of the Titans, the original Titan Shifter. Each one is just a different part of what she was. So far, Grisha Yeager's notes and diaries spoke of most of the nine, but not all of them, each with a purpose or ability unique to itself."

Even Shinji found himself impressed by the details mentioned for each Titan that, as of for the time being, he had seen, fought against or fought alongside four of them.

The Colossal Titan, the only known Titan that was far more massive than the rest of them, including the ones inside the Walls that they made.

The Armored Titan, a walking shield of hardened plates that could be removed in exchange for more mobility and speed.

The Female Titan, which might've only been passable to women, a very nimble fighter that could defend herself with temporary armor and might've had other abilities that were now in Kaede's possession to exploit.

And the Beast Titan, the most inhuman-looking of the Titans seen so far.

Yet the Dark Titan, Kaede Sogen, now had the power of three of the four foes that became their allies. And Shinji suspected that if she had obtained the power of the Beast Titan, its inhuman features would manifest on the Dark Titan. Possibly longer arms or hair around the lower body. But no matter what the change, the girl would become just as powerful as the Titans were on their own.

"When this is all over," he heard Kaede say, "do you think they'll permit me to walk away and hope that the power of the Titans will just fade away?"

She had turned away from him and looked out at the expanse of terrain between Rose and Maria, so Shinji turned to her and held her shoulders.

"When this is all over…we can go someplace far from here and find a peaceful, quiet life. The Titans will become just another memory." He told her.

"Then…let's go make the Beast Titan another bad memory."

To be continued…

A/N: What did you think of the Dark Titan's power trip? Not only does her spinal fluid serve as a means to return Titans to people, but it can allow her to take the power of other Titan Shifters and add them to her own. How do you suppose that's possible?


	17. And then there were four

Creation began on 07-19-17

Creation ended on 09-10-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Hope from the Sky: And then there were four

"…His last meal was last night," one of the Garrison members informed Erwin on the status of Zeke Yeager in his prison cell. "He hasn't made any attempts to try and transform into a Titan."

"That's good," Erwin said, looking over at Shinji and Kaede as they prepared the beverage spiked with the Dark Titan spinal fluid. "Make sure that he doesn't."

"Commander Erwin, sir," went Shinji, getting his attention.

"Yes?"

"Permission to speak with the current Beast Titan as his meal is being prepared."

Kaede looked at him like he was crazy right now.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Erwin asked him, unwilling to risk his life just for some new information regarding this Titan Shifter that they were hoping to strip of his powers. "If he tries to transform with you nearby and kills you, we take a huge blow."

Shinji thought about it and then looked at another Garrison member. More specifically, he was looking at their uniform.

"Do you think I could pass for a member of the Garrison?" He asked. "He doesn't know what I look like, just like the other three. It might be a good way to find out why he did what he did…from his point of view and not from what was left for us to find."

Kaede looked at the Garrison members and guessed that Shinji could probably fit in the uniform. Pretty much every person she met from the Survey Corps since she went with Shinji on the carrier to that island seemed to fit the same size of uniform, if not a little less for the smaller members, like Armin or Connie. And then she realized something something, as well: The Beast Titan didn't know her, either…and as a Titan Shifter herself, she had to keep Shinji protected from an enemy.

"Uh, I could probably fit in one, too," she uttered. "He doesn't know who any of us are…and he more than likely doesn't care about any of us, either."

-x-

He was getting tired of this treatment. All the more reason Zeke despised the Eldians of Paradis…and how he had to make them pay for their sins. Chained up and forced to defecate and soil himself because they didn't trust him not to transform into a Titan or try to escape and kill innocent civilians in cold blood.

"…Be careful with this man, you newbies," he heard someone say. "He's not friendly or trustworthy. Just make sure he gets his meal."

"Yes, sir," another voice responded, and footsteps came.

"Why does it smell down here?" A female voice asked.

"No one cleans up after him."

"Okay, that's terrible. I understand that this man isn't friendly, but could he at least be treated with some humanity?"

Zeke looked at the bars of his cell and saw three people walk by, two men and a woman; the first man he recognized, but the second one and the woman were new.

"Hello, sir," the young man greeted. "How are you?"

Zeke didn't say anything to him.

"Okay… We should just make sure you get your breakfast," the girl expressed. "And straighten you out, as well."

The young man held up the cup and raised it to Zeke's mouth.

The chained man drank and immediately realized it had a different taste to it.

"What is this?" He demanded.

"Sweet tea," the girl answered him. "Why? Is it too sweet?"

"Last time, they gave me water."

"I heard it was because of the limited resources since most of the population was relocated to the city outside the Walls," the young man explained, holding up the bowl of porridge. "Only the people of Wall Sina remain, convinced that the world out there isn't meant for us. But most of us think differently about this ever since we saw that young man. He gave us a way out of our previous lives."

"He gives us hope," added the girl. "He gave me hope."

"What is hope to you people?" Zeke questioned; he really wanted to know what motivated these Eldians to keep going on after all that they've done.

"Looking up at the sky, knowing that freedom was right there in front of our faces," the young man expressed. "The sight of the ocean for the first time. The beautiful world that is so much bigger than I had ever expected it to be."

"Learning of what was forgotten about for centuries," added the young woman. "How people could go anywhere without rules and regulations to bind them. That women were more than just homemakers or some sort of commodity in a man's world."

As they continued to feed Zeke, the young man that was really Shinji hoped that his and Kaede's ruse could keep the Titan Shifter from realizing that he was being stripped of his powers and returned to being a regular human once again.

Kaede, on the other hand, was just hoping that her Titan form would just gain a new ability that would aid more in the future operation to face the Marleyans. If there were truly only nine Titans among Titans and people that were stronger than usual, then her Dark Titan would have the power of four of these specific Titans, making her a formidable threat alongside Shinji's Eva.

 _Colossal, Armored, Female and Beast,_ she thought as Shinji gave him the spiked drink again. _Rogue and Founding, too. One has two, the other has four, leaving only three others with this power._

-x-

"…I take it you were successful?" Erwin asked Shinji and Kaede as they into the office room.

"He didn't suspect a thing, sir," said Kaede to him. "If we're right about the length of time it takes to transfer the power, it should begin almost instantaneously once he drank my spinal fluid in his tea."

"Then all that happens next is whatever we choose to do with him," added Shinji, and then he noticed that Kaede seemed bothered by something. "Kaede?"

"Hmm?"

"You seemed bothered by something."

"Oh, it was just a weird feeling, like I saw that man before."

"Really, Ms. Sogen?" Erwin asked her.

"Yes, sir, but when I think of where I've seen him, I only see something that doesn't make sense to me. I see a woman…naked as the day she was born…with the most hideous smile I've ever seen possible on any face."

"Hideous smile?" Shinji asked her.

"She looked like she was smiling…or grinning, even. All I know is that she looked awful."

-x-

"…What?" Levi questioned, wanting to make sure he heard right from Hange, who returned to him with new information.

"Rod Reiss finally revealed the name of his illegitimate child," Hange repeated. "According to one of the corps members who was keeping watch over him, she recently joined the Survey Corps as of this year under a false name."

"And who is she?"

-x-

"…Gosh, Kaede," went Shinji as he examined his girlfriend's drawing that depicted the woman she was recalling. "She's as creepy as I've seen in women."

Commander Erwin looked at the drawing…and recalled where he had seen a face like that before in his past ever since he joined the Survey Corps.

"That's a Titan," he revealed.

"What?!" Kaede questioned.

"Over the years, we've seen several Titans to need to identify specific ones with code names. This was called the Smiling Titan because of the rictus grin it always had." He explained to them. "But this Titan…met its end over five years ago…when Wall Maria was attacked by the Colossal and Shiganshina had to be abandoned."

"That day Bertolt Hoover kicked a hole in the wall," Kaede expressed, recalling a few other moments of that day when she turned into the Dark Titan for, perhaps, the first time, "when people were running to get away… I saw her with her creepy smile. She was picking up a woman and about to crush the life out of her body."

"Mister Eren Yeager's mother," Shinji clarified the identity of the woman she saw.

"I think she was the first person I ever…as a Titan."

Since he wasn't there five years ago, Shinji could only assume that when Kaede had become the Dark Titan, she committed her first kill over another Titan. But based upon her own experience, her initial transformation was most likely the result of self-preservation; her Titan kills merely a consequence of her subconscious drive to stay alive.

"But…why would this Titan make you think you've seen that man before?" Shinji asked.

"I…just thought they seemed related in a weird way."

"Shinji," went Erwin to them, "what is your opinion on this man?"

"Professionally or personally?" Shinji asked him back.

"Personally."

"Personally, this man terrifies me when I engaged him in conversation. I asked why he hated us and wanted us dead…and his response was that we're evil incarnate. But I want another shot at him."

"Why, Shinji?" Kaede asked him.

"I want to know how rooted he is in this Marleyan insanity that seems to stem from a sense of twisted history and propaganda to make the Eldians out as the villains of a surrealistic story some author has yet to even finish. If he truly believes in this sick propaganda the Marleyans shoved into his brain as some form of false truth, then what they must've told him is all that matters to him…and no variation from the Eldians will sway him."

"Then…he'll most likely be executed if he persists."

"Or be incarcerated for the rest of his life instead. I know it's not my place to disagree with higher decisions, but it's difficult to do what is considered one of the most cruelest things that one person can do to another person, even if the situation warrants so."

As far as they knew, Shinji was able to disregard his personal feelings and opinions when it originally came to the previous Titans they dealt with before the discovery that they were once regular Eldians that were transformed into mindless giants with no hope of returning to humanity. But even before the revelation that Kaede had a power that could undo what was done to her fellow Eldians centuries ago, before any of them ever met Shinji, the boy was using his purple giant for another organization that made it, to defeat other creatures that were a threat to mankind, and even then, he was trying to refrain from causing harm to anyone that couldn't get away from the danger present. Simply put, while he was willing to help them return to the world out beyond the island, even face an enemy that was as human as any of them were, he couldn't and didn't even want to cross the thin line between murder and preservation when there had to be another alternative.

"But sometimes, you come across someone that doesn't view any alternative measures to such an extreme," Erwin reminded him. "How will you deal with the girl in the other Eva that damaged Wall Maria and endangered the civilians if she returns?"

"I'll do what I feel is the lesser of the two evils," he responded; he wouldn't kill Asuka, no matter how much he or others felt that she deserved it, but he wouldn't let her continue with the sense of brutality she could unleash upon the people if she was ordered to harm them by NERV.

No, he would cross the line set against NERV…and cripple them.

"And what is the lesser of the two evils in your eyes, Shinji?" Kaede asked, wanting to know his agenda against Asuka.

"Take away her sense of purpose," he explained, not wanting to go further than so unless he had to.

-x-

"…What is that you got there, Eren?" Armin asked his friend, noticing that he had a small vial of something written in a language the blond-haired boy didn't recognize.

"Something that Rod Reiss had in a bag that was full of these vials," Eren explained. "I had asked Shinji if he could translate what this language was that's written on it, and he told me that it says _'Armor'_. If he's right, because he's one of the only few able to read these languages because they're the kind he grew up learning in his world, then if I took this, my Titan would have hardening capabilities."

"Like the Armored Titan."

"And the Dark Titan, if Ms. Sogen truly has taken the power of the Armored Titan from Reiner."

They and some of the higher-ups in the Survey Corps were on a small field that they learned recently was called a basketball court where people could threw balls that bounced into hoops. Standing under one of the hoops was Krista Lenz, or rather a girl they had been led to believe was named Krista Lenz ever since they met her during the training corps days. But with the revelation that Rod Reiss finally provided to them under much pressure and interrogation, they knew the truth now, and this girl wasn't who they thought she was. The name Krista Lenz was nothing more than an alias, a false name for a girl forced to cast aside her true name.

Rod's illegitimate heir, the girl he was trying to keep the rest of the world from knowing about…was named Historia Reiss…and this revelation made her existence another priority for them to deal with.

She had been found out…and they needed to get her side of the story to understand why she had been enlisted in the Survey Corps instead of living with her father's family or was with him the night Eren's father massacred most of the Reiss family for control of the Founding Titan.

"We just want to know how you got here," went Levi to her.

But Krista…or Historia was silent; she didn't want to talk about her past. She couldn't, and not because it was difficult…but because she was told not to.

"She won't talk to you," said none other than Ymir to Levi, getting everyone's attention. "What do you expect her to say? That she was threatened with execution if she told anyone?"

Suddenly, the ground shook a bit, and some of the corps members thought it was Titans again before the shaking ceased; they had to assume that, if there were no civilians screaming or trying to run away from danger, it was just the Eva returning from the Walls with the veterans and news of the Titan suppression operation using the Dark Titan.

"We'll postpone this conversation until later this evening," said Levi as he turned to go see the returning group from the Walls, "and we will get to the bottom of this."

-x-

"We've managed to cover up the damaged sections of Wall Maria with sheets and piles of dirt," Erwin relayed to Levi by the docks overlooking the ocean. "We've even managed to usurp the power of the Beast Titan from its previous holder and incorporate it into the amalgamated powers of the Dark Titan. The civilians we restored from the Titans inside the wall are still within the Trost District until we go back for them in another two days. The Garrison members stationed there are still keeping watch over the former Beast Titan."

"This is good news," Levi responded; any news with zero casualties was good news, and any news about an update on the progress with the Survey Corps, Garrison, or their allies was also good news.

"You have ascertained the identity of Reiss' heir?"

"Yes, we have. Unfortunately, she refuses to divulge any information as to why she was using a false name or why she joined the Survey Corps."

-x-

Shinji and Kaede were surprised to find out who Rod Reiss' daughter was one of the Survey Corps' most recent members, but to find her in a makeshift prison cell like she was some sort of prisoner, simply because she didn't want to explain herself, seemed wrong. For the boy, it just felt like she was accused of something that wasn't her fault. For his girlfriend, it was a type of disrespect to one that wanted to help the people by performing a public service that offered barely anything in return…and she knew this to be almost true.

"Miss Lenz," Shinji addressed the mystery girl, choosing to be accepting of the current situation with her identity. "How are you doing today?"

On a cot, Historia was facing away from the two, not bothering to turn and face them. Or even speak.

"She's not very talkative right now," explained Ymir to them; she was in the cell with Historia, having volunteered to surrender herself when Historia was put in the cell for her would-be insubordination. "What really brought the two of you here?"

"It's really his curiosity that brought the both of us here," Kaede answered her. "I'm just here because I can't go home right now."

Of course, this was a lie. Kaede simply didn't trust Ymir, despite not even knowing who she was. Not only that, but she was embarrassed a bit by the new addition to her Dark Titan guise after she decided to see what had changed with it and help Shinji cover up the damaged sections of Wall Maria.

"What brought me here," Shinji expressed, "is wanting to get why people are so hot about a young girl that I heard was able to turn many a head…just by looking at her. I mean, what is the situation with her? Is her father really the former monarch of the Walls? Is she the last of his children still living? Does she know something that could help the Eldians further? If she's able to do that, then she'd be another harbinger of hope for the people."

"And you honestly believe in that hype?" Ymir asked him.

"I'd be lying to myself if I said I didn't believe in such a long time ago. What was hope to a guy like me that didn't have any relationships that were stable? There was no hope…and I was just a guy that was exploited by his old man that wouldn't say one kind word to him. _'If you're going to do it, do it. If not, then leave.'_ That'swhat he told me the day I saw him after the last time I saw him over three years ago. And…I really hated him for what he wanted me to do. Fight for mankind, probably get killed in the process…or just leave without so much as an explanation for why the jerk picked me over someone that was more qualified. Even though I did what was ordered of me and fought at least seven-and-a-half Angels, and I say that because the last one I just fought, but was unable to defeat because I wind up getting landed here, my relationship with my father was practically nonexistent. He was nothing more than a stranger…that most people didn't really like. Even if I did go back to my world, it'd be much worse than it was before I unexpectedly left…and I don't really want to go back. Ever. Call it what you will, say that I just run away. I've heard it enough times that it becomes a broken record. I prefer it better here."

"And your old man and that girl in the red giant that wasn't the Colossal Titan, all they care about is getting some of the Titans and your purple giant? They don't give a care about you?" Ymir asked.

"I'm sure we can all agree that if it's between a potential resource that could bring unlimited power to an organization that wants to crush all opposition…and personal relationships with no indication of any reconciliation between the individuals involved… They'll be more interested in power than relationships if it gets them whatever it is they want."

"But…you have power," they heard the blond-haired girl say to him. "You have power…and you use it to help others. Look at what your presence here has done so far. We're done with life behind the Walls, we know the truth that mankind isn't on the brink of extinction from the Titans, that the Titans were once human, and that another nation is out to get rid of us all because of the power of the Titans. How long do you think it will be before these…Marleyans find out about you? How long do you think it will be before they decide to try and come after you for your purple giant? They might try to persuade you to side with them…or take control of the giant from you and use it for themselves."

Shinji looked at Ymir and then at Kaede, not denying this as a possibility, but then responded, "The day I betray each of you on Paradis and side with the people of Marley will be the day I succumb to the threat of losing all that matter to me…but I hope that day won't ever come. The Marleyans that see Eldians as children of the Devil or whatever they choose to call you, they can lose their hold on whatever bits of the world they have on it. Hell, they can even try and bribe me with whatever they think they can use to convince me to side with them for…and I'll still choose the Eldians over them."

Historia turned to face him and wondered why, when the situation seemed unlikely to be resolved through proper channels, he still chose to try and see a possibility that could resolve the crisis that existed for them. He seemed so…out of character…but was willing to put up with it. It seemed crazy…and he didn't even belong in their world…and yet chose their world over returning to his.

"What is it that keeps you here?" She asked him.

"What keeps me here?" He questioned. "At first, it was because Dot Pixis of the Garrison and the people of the Survey Corps asked for my help in retaking Wall Maria and what was beyond the Walls from the Titans they all thought was the enemy. Then, it was the fear of going back to my previous life, like there was even any guarantee of that ever happening. Heh-heh. Now, what keeps me here… What makes me want to stay here and see this thing to its conclusion…isn't even a 'what'. What made you decide to join the Survey Corps and fight for others? If there is even a 'what' in your reason."

"I doubt you would even enjoy the answer."

"Let's say that before I ended up here, there wasn't much enjoyment in my life. Whatever your reason, I try not to be judgmental unless I find a reason for such."

Even Ymir had to admit that this guy was hopelessly, hilariously foolish in his reasons for being here, for wanting to remain here in a world full of Titans instead of returning to his world where Titans were nonexistent. But probably not out to make a name for himself or convince others that he was some sort of god or reincarnation of somebody from a long time ago. No, she was probably convinced that he was just a simple, lonely boy with no happiness from his past and no real hope or interest in returning home in his future, just some dwindling light that promised him just one thing and one thing only.

-x-

"Based on the readings from the new satellites we were able to send into the portal," said Maya to Commander Ikari, reporting to him on the latest update on the Angel, "the Angel has relocated itself over an expanse of urban areas and hasn't demonstrated any hostility so far."

"It hasn't attacked any buildings or people present?" Gendo asked.

"No, sir," went Ritsuko to him. "It just seems to be ignoring the people that are there."

The faux-blond then set down some satellite photos on his desk. They were of the location the Angel was at, almost similar to the dwellings of a World War era.

"And what of the Eva?" He questioned, needing to know of the status of Unit-01.

"It and the Third Child remain stationed on the island they were found residing on with the people there. And along with this new discovery."

Ritsuko set down three more images, all depicting the Dark Titan in various stages. One photo showing it looking more feminine and with a thicker torso area. Another showing it getting attacked by other Titans smaller than itself. And the final photo showing it with a pelt of hair, sort of like a collar, around its neck and shoulders, thick hair covering its wrists and lower knees, like gauntlets and boots, respectively, as though the giant were somehow adapting, evolving over time.

"When were these taken?" He demanded.

"The first two were taken yesterday," she explained. "The third one was taken earlier this afternoon. It seems this girl that can turn into the giant is somehow able to mutate it over time."

"It almost looks like she's trying to make the giant she turns into look like some sort of fashion design model," Maya gave her opinion on the Dark Titan.

This discovery only enforced Gendo's desire to have the girl to their world for experimentation. The sooner they began studying her and finding out how she was able to do what she could, the better it would be for NERV when they gained the power to create their own Titans and give the Evas greater strength against the Angels. He even kept one of the vials of the serum to create Titans in his desk that was of the strongest variety. The strongest person in existence deserved only the greatest of power.

-x-

"Are you sure you can do this, Asuka?" Kaji asked the Second Child as she got ready to go back to the other world for the girl Shinji was suspected of being involved with romantically.

"Hey, if we get the girl and bring her here, that baka will have no choice but to return here, and when he does, he'll bring the Eva back with him," the redhead answered him. "He'll do it. And I want to know what a girl like this could ever see in a fool like him."

-x-

Shinji nor Kaede ever spoke during Historia's revelation about her past, the boy never thought to question the validity of her memories of her childhood until she finished, not even for the sake of making himself heard. During the time Historia shared with the couple and Ymir her past, all were silent and only listening.

But this didn't stop Historia from feeling like her past wasn't one worthy of any recognition or worth any measure of remembrance. Of course, her background was only from her point of view, so there was probably many details that even she knew nothing of. She only ever interacted with her mother two times in her life, and the only times her mother ever said anything to or about her…were full of resentment directed towards her, not that she ever thought much of it. And then, there was her father…and what came afterward that led to her present in a makeshift prison cell.

"…And that's how I ended up joining the Survey Corps," she finished revealing her past. "Nothing much left for me to tell."

Shinji inhaled a new breath and responded, "Nothing that is from your point of view, that is. But I sympathize with your suffering, Ms. Lenz. It's unforgivable, the way you were treated by people."

Even Kaede had sympathy for the girl. She thought what her step-grandfather did to her was the worst thing any child could suffer, but then, there was what happened with Shinji, and those like Ms. Mikasa, Mr. Armin, or the current Rogue Titan, Eren Yeager. To think that her father is a man of royal lineage…and her mother had been a servant girl to the Reiss family…and the girl had no meaningful relationship with either parent.

"It's not just unforgivable," she shared her opinion, "it's inhuman. Has anything of this sort ever occurred in your world?"

She was referring to the existence of illegitimate children with no relationship ties with either parent, but Shinji knew none like this. The boy knew for a fact that there were many people that had at least one parent in their lives, but he doubted that there were any like this girl.

"Not of the sort that Ms. Lenz is," he explained. "But they don't have any ties to royalty or were targeted for assassination because other people didn't want them to have a claim to something someone else had. Illegitimacy isn't really a crime. Surely, there are dozens of people around here that have at least one parent that isn't married to someone else they were involved with."

"Not that we really know of, Shinji," Kaede explained; most of the people she ever spoke with or heard from had both their parents and the ones that didn't were because they had been killed by the Titans over five years ago.

"But getting back to the subject of this matter, the guy that is your father by blood has been stripped of his authority over the Walls and the people, but this act has left a measure of instability within the ruling government. Only the people of Wall Sina remain within the Walls with just a handful of the Garrison. Because of the necessity of a monarch for the Walls, there needs to be someone able to lay claim to the throne and restore order to the people. Excluding your father, that leaves only you, Ms. Lenz, and that makes you the one best suited for the position."

"You want her to be queen?" Ymir asked.

"Me personally…or the Survey Corps? There's a big difference between who wants what to happen and who feels is what needs to happen."

"Touché."

"But to answer your question, it's what the Survey Corps want. I have no say in why they want Ms. Lenz to be the queen of the Walls. If anything, it helps to end one situation and help advance the possibilities of dealing with another situation. So far, nothing within Wall Sina has caused people to break out and cause a riot or war, but Commander Erwin wants to prevent that from ever happening."

"It sounds more like they need a puppet," Historia suggested.

"You a puppet?" Kaede asked. "That would imply you have no will of your own, no capacity to make your own choices, for better or for worse. If someone tells you to jump, you do just that. You don't even ask how high. Except you do have a choice, you know. You can be the queen and decide what others do for the good of the people. I mean, Hell, you can make it the law that experimentation on people is punishable by life in prison, or drafting kids into the military is against the law unless they're eighteen. Or even dissolve the monarchy and give control of the Walls over to a government assembly that can do right by the people. I mean, do what you think is the right choice, not what is expected of you by people older than you that need you to do something you might not agree with."

Historia looked at Kaede and uttered, "I think you're hardly one to talk, miss, and you're the Dark Titan. Why don't you do it instead of me?"

"You're only half right, Ms. Lenz," Shinji defended his girlfriend. "She's the young lady with the power of the Dark Titan. What she believed to be a negative for her, she's turning into a positive and helping people. And last time anyone bothered to check, her family has no royal blood or political clout in their possession. She couldn't take the throne, even if she wanted to."

"And I don't want it," Kaede added. "That's nothing more than a daydream, a child's fantasy. One I don't even delude myself into recalling."

"What about you, then, Mr. Ikari?" Historia suggested. "Haven't you ever wanted to be a king of your own nation?"

"Tempting, Ms. Lenz, but I'm not the monarch-type," Shinji confessed. "I'm no leader. Still, it's your paternal heritage that ties you to the monarchy. No matter how it's viewed by any that don't agree with your status, it's your birthright. And you're the only person I've met here that I haven't had a degree of conflict with that has what is called in my world the divine right to rule. It's a…god-given right you have to rule the Walls."

"God-given, huh?" Ymir asked.

"Yes, god-given. It goes back generations, right back to the very first ruler. There are many different monarchs in history that go back through time and forward into the unknown future. Depending upon how many descendants a ruler has…and depending on how many children they have that go out into the world over the years, any number of those people with royal blood, either on their mother's side or their father's side, anyone with a common ancestor has a right to claim their family's throne…should they choose to…or if they can take it. You don't have much belief in such, do you?"

"The world is still a cruel place…with no space for simple beliefs."

"Question, then," said Kaede to Ymir. "If you believe the world to still be cruel and unrelenting… Why are you always with Ms. Lenz…or Ms. Reiss? It's like you knew who she really was before the Survey Corps did."

"Everyone has their reasons."

"But what are yours?"

Ymir didn't answer her, but Shinji started to get suspicious and got up.

"We'll be right back," he uttered, taking Kaede with him out of the room.

-x-

Zeke thought these Eldians, these…Subjects of Ymir…rather foolish to unlock his restraints after another day in his cell. He might've been deprived of his knife and small blades to cut himself, but he still had his teeth, and once he sank them into his left wrist, he would have them at his mercy and take the Founding Titan from them!

Crunch! He felt the skin break under his canines and incisors, drawing blood.

But the transformation that should've came just seconds after doing so…didn't happen. He was still in the cell, now with a bite mark on his arm.

 _That's not possible,_ he thought; his mind had been clear with his objective, but nothing occurred. _I'm still within my term! My Beast Titan should respond! Respond!_

He bit into his wrist again, but only caused himself further self-harm. Somehow, his power as the Beast Titan must've been suppressed by the Eldians. Maybe because of that purple giant he saw that day at the city. One way or another, he had to inform the Marleyans. He had to let them know this…thing the Eldians had on their side was just as much of a threat to their nation as the last remnants of Eldia was.

-x-

"…None of them really knew much about Ymir," Shinji told Kaede when he returned to the rooftop of the building used to house Historia and Ymir separate from the former Colossal, Armored and Female Titans.

"Same with me on my end," the girl responded. "With the sole exception of the fact that she's always with Ms. Reiss, nobody from the training corps that joined the Survey Corps could tell me anything about her. Although, during the battle for Trost, Mr. Springer did mention hearing Ymir asking Historia to marry her when things settled down."

"Armin mentioned the same thing to me. Beyond that, there's nothing in the form of records on this lady. I mean, they have nothing on her; no known relatives, no village or district that she grew up in, not even a last name."

"So…she's a private person?"

"Private…or there's more to her than what she doesn't say to people, which would make her a secretive person, one that doesn't say much of anything about themselves to anyone."

"Secrets that we keep from others…and secrets that are kept from others."

"Huh?"

"Just something my father once said to me when I was little, about how there are only two forms of secrets. There are the ones we keep…and the ones that are kept from us."

"Do those kept secrets include a cost, Kaede?"

"Yeah. Except everything has a cost to it, including secrets and truths. They're not for free. I mean, look at how my keeping the truth about the Dark Titan cost me a bit. Before I met you, I wanted to stay as far away as possible from men…because I hated my step-grandfather for what he did to me. I hated what I thought I had become, that I needed to hide it at all times to protect myself from getting killed. Until you changed everything with your presence."

Then, just because of a new, random thought, Shinji gasped.

"What if she's like them?" He suggested.

"What?" She asked him.

"Like Bertolt, Reiner, Annie and Zeke Yeager," he clarified. "What if Ymir's a Titan Shifter, too?"

That was quite a farfetched assumption, even for Shinji, but not too farfetched for Kaede to assume was beyond the realm of possibility. Since nobody within the Survey Corps had any information on this Ymir that related to her background, her past, and the girl wasn't exactly speaking much about herself, what other alternative was there but to simply assume that she was able to generate a Titan body and masquerade somewhat as a false enemy?

"But, Shinji, there is no evidence to the contrary," she told him.

Shinji sighed and accepted that they had no proof of the girl being a Titan Shifter.

At least not yet.

-x-

Had Asuka truly taken the time to just admire the Earth-like beauty of this universe these Titans inhabited, she would've probably been enthralled by observing the planet like so many before her.

"How can we expect this girl we're going after to cooperate with us?" One of the men in front of her asked another.

"Based on the uncooperative behavior of the Third Child," he answered. "I mean, this kid turns down a chance of a lifetime to return home, and for what? He chose to stay with some people he doesn't know, to fight an enemy they can't hope to beat, and might have a girlfriend based solely on the way he said her name. You all have the girl's photo, right?"

"Yes, sir," a third man uttered, holding up a photo of this Kaede girl. "I can imagine how the Third Child would be involved with someone like this. I mean, look at her. Not a bad sight."

Hearing this only infuriated Asuka. To think that some other girl that never did anything as important as her was considered beautiful was an insult to her pride. If she had to, when she caught the girl and had her brought back to NERV HQ, she would cut her face and restore the status quo; there was only room in any existing universe for one beautiful and important girl, and that was herself.

 _She is not prettier than I am,_ she thought, wanting so badly to crush the girl and take out the Angel.

To be continued…

A/N: Can anyone guess what the title truly means for this chapter?


End file.
